Turkey-Syria Earthquake: Dramatic rescues but toll rises

Rescuers weep by a collapsed building in Adiyaman, Turkey, Thursday. Pics/AFP

Emergency crews made a series of dramatic rescues in Turkey on Friday, pulling several people, some almost unscathed, from the rubble, four days after a catastrophic earthquake killed more than 22,000.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the border region between Turkey and Syria, an area home to more than 13.5 million people, early Monday morning. With morgues and cemeteries overwhelmed, bodies lay wrapped in blankets, rugs and tarps in the streets of some cities.

Temperatures remain below freezing across the large region, and many people have no place to shelter. The government has distributed millions of hot meals, as well as tents and blankets, but was still struggling to reach many people in need.

Rescuers and his mother surround Adnan Mohammet Korkut after he was rescued in Gaziantep, Turkey Friday

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that death toll in the country rose to 19,388 while 77,711 people were injured as a result. Turkey's disaster management agency said more than 75,000 survivors have been evacuated to other provinces.

Also Read: Turkey-Syria quake: Survivors of the catastrophe struggle to stay warm and fed

More than 3,300 have been confirmed killed on the other side of the border in war-torn Syria, bringing the total number of dead to more than 22,000.

Engineers suggested that the scale of the devastation is partly explained by lax enforcement of building codes, which some have warned for years would make them vulnerable to earthquakes. The problem has been largely ignored, experts said, because addressing it would be expensive, unpopular and restrain a key engine of the country's economic growth.

Before dawn in Gaziantep, near the epicenter of the quake in Turkey, rescuers pulled Adnan Muhammed Korkut from the basement where had been trapped since the temblor struck Monday. The 17-year-old beamed a smile at the crowd of friends and relatives who chanted "Adnan," "Adnan," clapping and crying tears of joy as he was carried out and put onto a stretcher.

"Thank God you arrived," he said, embracing his mother and others who leaned down to kiss and hug him as he was being loaded into an ambulance. "Thank you everyone."

Trapped for 94 hours, but not crushed, the teenager said he had been forced to drink his own urine to slake his thirst. "I was able to survive that way," he said.
"I have a son just like you," a rescue worker, identified only as Yasemin, told him after giving him a warm hug. "I swear to you, I have not slept for four days. I swear I did not sleep; I was trying to get you out."

In Adiyaman, rescue crews pulled 4-year-old Yagiz Komsu from the debris of his home, 105 hours after the quake. They saved his mother later.

Dramatic rescues were reported elsewhere, including in Antakya, where crews saved a 10-year-old girl overnight. Elsewhere in the city of Iskenderun, nine survivors were located Friday trapped in a building. In the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, a woman was rescued and rescuers were trying to reach her child.

Rescuers pulled a woman alive out of the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey on Friday, prompting cheers from onlookers about 104 hours after she was buried by the huge earthquake.

German emergency workers carefully lifted 40-year-old Zeynep Kahraman on a stretcher past shattered blocks of concrete and twisted metal in the town of Kirikhan into an ambulance. "Now I believe in miracles," Steven Bayer, the leader of the International Search and Rescue team said at the site. "You can see the people crying and hugging each other. It's such a huge relief that this woman under such conditions came out so fit. It's an absolute miracle," he said.

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