While rescue operations for buried victims continued for five days in Turkey and Syria, news of miraculous survivals such as the rescue of a pregnant woman and her 6-year-old daughter in 115 hours gave a ray of hope.
A pregnant woman named Zahide Kaya was rescued from the rubble of an apartment building in Gaziantep, near the epicenter of the earthquake, 115 hours after the quake struck, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency.
The Turkiye Disaster Management Agency (AFAD) and a non-governmental organization rescue team heard a sound among the rubble and removed the pile of concrete to rescue the woman beneath it.
The woman was given oxygen at the scene and immediately taken to the hospital. About an hour before Kaya was rescued, his 6-year-old daughter was also rescued first, according to Anadolu news agency.
Also, according to the US CNN broadcast, three mothers and daughters were miraculously rescued in Turkey on the same day, including a mother rescued after 111 hours and two daughters rescued after 112 hours.
Earlier, 102 hours after the earthquake, six members of a family, including a couple and four children, were rescued from the Turkish port city of Iskenderun.
The only child in the family who was not at home at the time of the earthquake and escaped anger, watched the rescue operation in front of the collapsed house and burst into tears when she saw her mother being rescued. Rescuers who saw the family reunited were also said to have shed tears hugging each other.
However, CNN pointed out that as the rescue operation entered the fifth day after the first earthquake, the survivors’ hope for survival was gradually fading. The ‘golden time’, which is crucial for the rescue of survivors, is known as 72 hours.
In particular, the local cold weather is acting as a bad factor. In Aleppo, Syria, the minimum temperature is expected to drop to minus 3 degrees Celsius throughout the weekend. Usually, the lowest temperature in February in this area is around 2.5 degrees Celsius, but this year, the exceptionally cold weather continues.
The White Helmets, a Syrian civilian rescue unit, tweeted the day before, “Looking for, waiting for, listening for signs of life. We will not leave them alone in the wreckage. I will not lose hope.” Song Chi-hoon,
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.