On Friday, rescuers in Antakya, almost completely destroyed by the earthquake, pulled two survivors from the rubble – Osman Halebiye, 14, and Mustafa Avji, 34. They remained under the rubble of buildings without water or food for 260 hours.
When Avji was carried on a stretcher to the car, he was connected via video link with his parents. “I completely lost all hope. It’s a real miracle. I saw the wreckage and thought no one could be saved from there,” his father said.
It is believed that living people can be found within the first 72 hours after an earthquake. But there are record cases where, after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, a teenage girl was rescued 15 days later.
According to official figures, 38,044 people have died in Turkey so far. The death toll is expected to rise. Millions of people were left homeless.
In neighboring Syria, more than 5,800 people are listed as dead. Northwestern Syria, largely controlled by the Syrian opposition, was hardest hit by the earthquake. The realities of civil war complicate international efforts to help people in the region. On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the first shelling since the disaster – Assad’s troops shelled the outskirts of Al-Atarib, a city badly damaged by the earthquake and held by the opposition.
