A teenage girl and a young woman were pulled alive from the rubble by rescuers in southern Turkey on Thursday, February 16, eleven days after the earthquake, according to an AFP journalist and a television channel.
Aleyna Ölmez – whose surname in Turkish means “the one who does not die” – is among the few survivors still discovered, despite the cold, in the ruins of buildings destroyed by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6 that killed more than 36,000 people in Turkey and nearly 3,700 in Syria.
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This 17-year-old girl had been buried for 248 hours under the rubble of her building in Kahramanmaras, a town near the epicenter of the earthquake.
“We will never forget you”
“She looked healthy. She opened and closed her eyes.told AFP one of the men who took part in the rescue operations, Ali Akdogan. “We have been working here in this building for a week now […] We came here hoping to hear sounds”he added. “We are happy whenever we find a living being, even a cat”.
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In tears, Aleyna’s uncle embraced one by one the volunteers who saved her. “We will never forget you”he promised them.
“We were so happy. To see the joy of the family is incomparable”commented Ismail, another rescuer.
A woman in her twenties also emerged from the rubble
Made up largely of miners who arrived from different cities in Turkey, volunteers are still active in trying to find survivors in the ruins.
The NTV television channel later announced that Neslihan Kilic, a woman in her twenties, had been rescued 258 hours after the first quake in the same city of Kahramanmaras.
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CNN Turk pointed out that more than 250 people had lost their lives in the skyscraper complex from which she was rescued.
Turkey has suspended rescue operations in some areas and the Syrian government has done the same in areas under its control.
