Rescuers managed to pull more survivors from the rubble a week after the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria and left more than 33,000 dead, while the UN warned that there will be more fatalities.
Saadet Sendag, an elderly Turkish woman, was miraculously rescued this Monday 177 hours after the seismic movement, being rescued from the rubble in Hatay after just over a week of work.
Her son reacted with shouts of joy while the rescuers moved her to give her help and medical assistance.
In total, more than 35,000 people have died from the earthquake, according to figures updated on Monday.
A few hours earlier, a minor and a 62-year-old woman had staged other miraculous rescues after almost seven days trapped among the destruction of collapsed buildings in the devastating earthquake on February 6.
Seven-year-old Mustafa was rescued in Turkey’s Hatay province, while Nafize Yilmaz was found alive in Nurdagi, also in Hatay, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Monday. Both were trapped for 163 hours before their rescue on Sunday night.
More than 32,000 people from local organizations are working in search and rescue efforts alongside 8,294 rescuers from abroad, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said.
A member of a British rescue team posted on Twitter on Sunday a video of a rescuer climbing down a tunnel cut through rubble to find a Turkish man who had been trapped in Hatay for five days.
Rescue teams are working against the clock as experts warn that the chance of finding people alive amid the devastation is dwindling with each passing day.
In the destroyed Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter of the quake, crews dug through mountains of rubble where they recovered a body.
But rescuers complained of a lack of sensors and advanced search equipment, so they must carefully dig through the rubble with shovels or their hands.
“If we had this kind of equipment we would have saved hundreds of lives, if not more,” said Alaa Moubarak, head of civil defense in Jableh, in northwestern Syria.
Lack of aid in Syria
The UN denounced that not all the desperately needed aid in Syria has been sent.
A convoy of supplies for northwestern Syria arrived via Turkey, but UN emergencies chief Martin Griffiths said much more is needed for the millions of people whose homes have been destroyed.
“Until now we have failed the people of northwestern Syria. They feel abandoned. They are looking for international help that has not arrived,” Griffiths said on Twitter.
Assessing the damage on Saturday in southern Turkey, when the death toll stood at 28,000, Griffiths said the number could “double or more” because the chance of finding survivors is diminishing every day.
Supplies have been slow to arrive in Syria, a country embroiled in years of war that has destroyed its health system and parts of the country still controlled by rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
A convoy of 10 UN trucks entered northwestern Syria through the Bab al Hawa border post, according to an AFP journalist.
Bab al Hawa is the only point through which international aid can enter areas of Syria under rebel control after nearly 12 years of civil war. Other crossings were closed under pressure from China and Russia.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, met with Assad in Damascus on Sunday and said the Syrian leader had said he was willing to open more border crossings to help bring aid into rebel-held areas.
