A group of rescuers pulled an unconscious 5-year-old girl through the debris of a wrecked building Saturday, five days after a powerful earthquake decimated parts of Syria and Turkey, as awe-struck onlookers standing on a mountain of rubble clapped and snapped photos with their smartphones.
The rescue of the Syrian girl, who was identified by her first name, Aisha, was caught in a chilling photograph that showed her flowing brown hair cascading onto an orange gurney, which was lifted by a group of white-gloved and helmeted rescuers in the province of Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter of the quake in south Turkey.
Rescuers clawed 67 survivors from the debris of destroyed buildings in the previous 24 hours, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told reporters overnight, in efforts that drew in more than 31,000 rescuers across the affected region.
Each person saved was a cause for celebration.
Turkish television stations broadcast the rescue of an entire family in Kahramanmaras province, 133 hours after the earthquake. First, 12-year-old Nehir Naz Narli was pulled from the rubble, followed by both of her parents.
Two additional women were found alive in the rubble of collapsed buildings in the province after they had been trapped for 122 hours Saturday.
One of the rescued women, Menekse Tabak, 70, was swaddled in a blanket while workers carried her to a waiting ambulance, images from state news agency Anadolu showed. The other was an injured 55-year-old, identified as Masallah Cicek, who was extricated from the debris of a collapsed building in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeast Turkey, the agency said.
Earlier in the day, a family of five in the decimated town of Nurdagi at the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake was pulled to safety. Rescuers cheered and chanted, “God is Great!” as the father, the last family member to emerge from the debris, was lifted to safety, according to HaberTurk TV.
Here’s the latest coverage on the Turkey-Syria earthquake:
Melisa Ulku, a woman in her 20s, was extricated from the rubble in Elbistan in the 132nd hour since the quake, less than an hour after the rescue of another person at the same site, the Washington Post reported. Before she was pulled out of the debris, police surrounding the site advised onlookers not to clap or cheer in order not to interfere with other rescue efforts in the vicinity. Ulku was placed on a gurney and covered with a thermal blanket, as some rescuers hugged and shouted “God is great!”
Just an hour earlier, a three-year-old girl and her father were pulled from debris in the town of Islahiye, and soon after a seven-year-old girl was rescued in the province of Hatay.
But even as some individuals were pulled out alive, there were fewer rescue operations visible in the province amid the smashed and fallen buildings. Residents in some areas said collapsed buildings on side streets remained untouched.
The situation is especially dire in Syria, where people displaced by the civil war were made homeless again, and relief has been slow to arrive. More than 3,500 of the victims died in Syria.
Dozens of planeloads of United Nations aid have arrived in areas held by the Syrian government since Monday, but little has reached the northwest, the worst-affected area.
Meanwhile, more than 100 people were detained across the 10 Turkish provinces affected by the quake, according to Anadolu News Agency. One man, a contractor who built a 12-story upmarket apartment block that collapsed in Hatay, was nabbed as he waited to board a plane in Istanbul.
The arrests came as the Turkish Justice Ministry ordered officials in those provinces to set up “Earthquake Crimes Investigation Units” to examine shoddy workmanship on collapsed buildings by local contractors and builders.
Separately. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, facing questions over earthquake planning and response time, said authorities should have reacted faster.
People in the quake zone and opposition politicians have accused the government of a slow and inadequate response early on, and questioned why the army, which played a main role after a 1999 earthquake, was not involved sooner.
Erdogan promised to start rebuilding cities within weeks, saying hundreds of thousands of buildings were now uninhabitable while issuing stern warnings against looters.
Turkey said about 1.05 million people were left homeless by the disaster.
With Post Wires