SECOND MIRACLE OF THE QUAKE
AS her ghostly, dust-covered face was uncovered amid the rubble, this little girl could easily be mistaken for another victim of Turkey’s earthquake.
But, amid shouts of joy, three-year-old Ayda Gezgin was pulled alive from the debris of a collapsed apartment block four days after the tremors struck.
Her astonishing survival came a day after another three-year- old girl, Elif Perincek, was found after being trapped under her collapsed home for 65 hours.
Rescuers in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, had heard the soft calls of Ayda Gezgin, who was wedged in a tight space next to a dishwasher. Ibrahim Topal, of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, said: ‘My colleague and I looked at each other like, “Did you hear that too?” We listened again. There was a very weak voice saying something like, “I’m here”.’
Nusret Aksoy said he was sifting through the rubble when he found Ayda. She waved at him, told him her name and said she was OK, Mr Aksoy said.
The searchers also found Ayda’s dead mother in the ruins. Her brother and father were not in the building when the tremors devastated the city.
Health officials said Ayda was in good condition in hospital. The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7, has so far killed 107 and injured 1,000. Officials said 144 survivors were still in hospital. Two teenagers also died and 19 people were injured on the Greek island of Samos, near the quake’s epicentre in the Aegean.
The tremors were felt across western Turkey, including in Istanbul, as well as in the Greek capital of Athens.
Turkey is crossed by two major faultlines. In 1999 two quakes killed 18,000 people in the north-west of the country.
her designer handbags have won devotees from Kate Moss to Paloma Faith. But Lulu Guinness would doubtless attribute both her commercial verve and generosity of spirit to her parents.
her mother April — who died last year, aged 82, three weeks after Lulu’s younger brother Simon rivett- Carnac killed himself — made no fewer than 24 individual bequests in her just published £4.5 million will. And that’s not including those to her immediate family or her local church. April’s late husband – Lulu’s father, Sir Miles rivett-Carnac — periodically replenished the family coffers in idiosyncratic style.
While in Le Touquet, he returned to their hotel early one morning after an all-night baccarat session at the casino and announced: ‘I’ve broken the bank!’ April was unimpressed. ‘Do you know what time it is ?’ she rejoindered.