A newborn baby and her mother have been rescued from rubble in Turkey, some 90 hours after the first of Monday’s devastating earthquakes. Footage showed the child being carefully removed overnight – a scene described by local media as “miraculous”.
Hopes of finding many more survivors are fading amid the freezing cold four days after the tragedy. However, search and rescue efforts continue in Turkey and neighboring Syria, which was also hit by the earthquakes.
Newborn Yagiz was pictured wrapped in a blanket and being wheeled into an ambulance for treatment. His mother was taken out on a stretcher. There was no further news about their health.
Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — whose teams were reportedly involved in the rescue operation — wrote on social media about the rescue, saying the operation took place in the city of Samandag.
Footage obtained by Reuters news agency also showed a man being rescued from the wreckage, although it is not known if he has any connection with the mother and newborn.
More than 21,000 people died — most of them in Turkey — after the initial 7.8-magnitude quake on Monday morning and the hundreds of aftershocks that followed. There are also fears of a secondary catastrophe, as many people have been left homeless and are now without access to water, fuel and electricity.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the tragedy as the “disaster of the century”. Opponents accuse the leader of failing to prepare for the earthquake and question how the estimated 88 billion lira (R$25 billion) raised via an “earthquake tax” was spent.
The fee — first imposed after a major earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people — should have been spent on disaster prevention and developing emergency services.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, said on Wednesday that Erdogan’s government had “not prepared for an earthquake for 20 years”.
Despite the devastation, stories of remarkable escapes or heroic rescues have emerged in recent days. Thousands of people have volunteered to adopt a baby girl who was born under a collapsed building in northwest Syria. When she was rescued, baby Aya — which means “miracle” in Arabic — was still linked by the umbilical cord to her mother, who died along with other family members.
This text was originally published here.
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