Children pulled alive from rubble days after devastating earthquake
Rescue teams have saved two girls from the wreck of their collapsed apartment building in the Turkish city of Izmir, three days after an earthquake
The overall death toll from Friday' s quake reached 87 after teams found more bodies overnight amid toppled buildings in Turkey's thirdlargest city.
Close to a thousand people were injured in the quake, which was centred in the Aegean Sea, north-east of the Greek island of S amos, and killed at least 51 and injuring more than 900 people.
Rescue workers clapped as 14-year- old Idil Sirin was removed from the rubble, after being trapped for 58 hours. Her eight-year-old sister, Ipek, did not survive, NTV television reported.
S even hours later, rescuers saved three-year-old Elif Perincek, whose mother and two sisters had been rescued two days earlier, from another toppled building. The child spent 65 hours in the wreckage of her apartment and became the 106th person to be rescued alive, the state -run Anadolu Agency reported.
Muammer Celik of the Istanbul fire department's search and rescue team told NTV television that he thought Elif was dead when he reached her inside the wreckage.
"There was dust on her face, her face was white,” he said. “When I cleaned the dust from her face, she opened her eyes. I was astonished”"
He added: “It was a miracle, it was a true miracle.”
The girl would not let go of his hand throughout the rescue operation, Mr Celik said, adding :“I am now her big brother.”
Onlookers applauded as ambulances carrying the girls rushed to hospitals immediately after their rescue.
There was some debate over the magnitude of the earthquake. The US Geological Survey rated it 7.0, while Istanbul' s Kandilli Institute put it at 6.9 and Turkey's emergency management agency said it measured 6.6. The quake triggered a small tsunami that hit Samos and the Seferihisar district of Izmir, drowning one elderly
woman. The tremors were felt across western Turkey, including in Istanbul as well as in the Greek capital of Athens. Hundreds of aftershocks followed.
The latest rescue came after workers pulled a 70 -year-old man from a collapsed building in western Turkey, some 34 hours after the earthquake struck.
Ahmet Citim was pulled out from the rubble in Izmir shortly after midnight on
Sunday and taken to hospital. Health minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted that the man said: “I never lost my hope.” Search-and-rescue teams were continuing their work yesterday. AFAD said more than 5,700 personnel from state agencies, municipalities and non-governmental organisations had been activated for rescue work and hundreds of others for food distribution, psycho-social help and build
ing damage control.
Turkey has a mix of older buildings and cheap or illegal construction, which can lead to serious damage and deaths when earthquakes hit. Regulations have been tightened to strengthen or demolish buildings.
Turkey sits on top of fault lines and is prone to ear th - quakes. In 1999, two powerful quakes killed 18,000 people in north-western Turkey.