Man rescued 11 days after deadly quake in Turkey
A man was rescued on Friday from the rubble of a building that collapsed in the southern province of Hatay, 11 days after a massive earthquake struck the area killing more than 43,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
Istanbul Fire Brigade teams said they rescued Hakan Yasinoğlu, in his 40s, alive from the wreckage in Hatay centre after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck in the dead of night on Feb. 6.
While many international rescue teams have left the vast quake zone, survivors were still emerging from under a multitude of flattened homes, defying all the odds.
Experts say most rescues occur in the 24 hours following an earthquake. However, a teenage girl was saved 15 days after a devastating quake in Haiti in 2010, giving hope that more people might yet be found.
The death toll in Turkey now stands at 38,044, making it the worst disaster in modern Turkish history. But this number is expected to shoot up given some 264,000 apartments were lost in the quake and many people are still unaccounted for.
In neighbouring Syria, already shattered by more than a decade of civil war, authorities have reported more than 5,800 deaths. The toll has not changed for days.
The bulk of Syria's fatalities have been in the northwest, an area controlled by insurgents who are at war with President Bashar al-Assad - a conflict that has complicated efforts to aid people affected by the earthquake.
Reuters
