Earthquake in Turkey: mother and boy pulled out of rubble 10 days later, death toll reaches 43,000

A child, mother and two men were rescued 10 days after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Turkey and Syria that killed more than 43,000 people.

The hope of finding even more survivors is fading as the chances of survival for those trapped under the rubble dwindle rapidly.

Neither Turkey nor Syria has announced how many people are still missing from the quake that hit at 4 am on February 6, before another quake of almost the same magnitude struck, becoming one of the worst natural disasters of the century.

A 14-year-old child named Osman Halebiye was pulled from rubble in the Turkish city of Antakya at night after 17 bodies were pulled from a collapsed building, according to media reports.

“As soon as our hopes were over, we reached our brother Osman at a speed of 260,” Okan Tosun, head of the police rescue team, told Turkish authorities. DHA news agency.

Neslihan Kilic, a 29-year-old mother of two, was pulled from the rubble of a building in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, after being trapped for 258 hours.

Ms Kilic was rescued after a forklift driver lifted her bed and saw her arm move. DHA said Thursday.

Her son-in-law described how “we prepared her grave” and asked rescuers to stop searching if they damaged her remains.

“A moment later, her voice could be heard under the ruins of the building,” he told CNN.

Ms. Kilic’s husband and two children have not yet been found.

Two men were rescued from the rubble of a collapsed hospital in Antakya, the capital of Hatay province in southern Turkey.

Mustafa Avchi, 34, one of the two rescued men, used the rescuer’s phone to call his family after he was taken to safety.

As he was placed on a stretcher, he received a video call from his parents, who showed him their newborn baby.

“I have lost all hope, this is a real miracle, they returned my son to me,” said his father, Ali Avchi.

“I saw the wreckage and thought that you won’t get anyone out of there alive. We were prepared for the worst.”

The mother, who was 39 weeks pregnant when she was rescued from the collapsed house, gave birth 10 hours later, according to the BBC.

Faten al-Yousifi was hospitalized, where she gave birth to a girl named Lujain, which means “silver” in Arabic.

“I didn’t think I was alive,” said Ms al-Yousifi, who fled war-torn Yemen for Turkey in 2014.

Her 29-year-old husband died after a building collapse at their home.

Despite the heartbreaking circumstances, Ms. al-Yousifi said: “Thank you to everyone who helped and supported me.

“I had a family when mine wasn’t around.”

The quake in southern Turkey has killed at least 38,044 people, officials said on Friday, while authorities in neighboring Syria reported 5,800 deaths.

As temperatures dropped, many survivors stayed in tents in makeshift camps near factories, railroad cars, and greenhouses.

A father of three in Kahramanmaras said the situation was so dire that he would have preferred to remain under the rubble.

Hadji Kose said he spent the first few days after the earthquake looking for a tent for his family, but “wherever I went” he couldn’t find one.

The Azerbaijani aid agency eventually provided him with a tent, but he said he still struggled to eat or find a place to relieve himself.

“I wish we were under the rubble too so we don’t have to live in that situation,” Kose said. “Help doesn’t reach the people in the tents.”

On Thursday, the UN asked for more than $1 billion (£838 million) in funding for Turkey’s relief efforts. He also issued a $400 million (£335 million) appeal for aid in Syria.

On Thursday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made his first televised comment since the earthquake, saying more resources are needed to respond to the disaster than the government has at its disposal.

Additional agency reporting