A teenager has been rescued alive from under the rubble in Turkey on Thursday, more than ten days after the earthquake that has already caused more than 42,000 victims, including those in neighboring Syria. The 17-year-old survivor had spent 248 hours under the ruins of a building in Turkey's southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, state broadcaster TRT Haber reports.
The images show how the rescue teams took her on a stretcher to an ambulance covered with a thermal blanket.
The number of people killed by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the area and became the deadliest in Turkey's modern history now stands at 36,187, according to authorities. In Syria, where the earthquake has exacerbated a humanitarian crisis sparked by 12 years of war, the recorded death toll stands at 5,800, a figure that has changed little in days. The death toll is expected to rise as search teams find more bodies in the rubble.
Although some people were found alive in Turkey on Wednesday, the hope of locating survivors dwindles with each passing day. The Turkish and Syrian authorities have not reported the number of missing.
Meanwhile, millions of people are in need of humanitarian aid after being made homeless in near-freezing winter temperatures. In Syria the situation is especially difficult, since on the one hand the Syrian government wants to control aid shipments and who receives them, and on the other, the strict economic sanctions imposed on the al-Assad government by the US. and Europe make it difficult to carry out transactions.
