JOY.. IN A LIVING HELL
» Boy of three and 10-day-old among saved » World rallies but fears grow for the trapped
RESCUERS have saved earthquake victims more than 100 hours after disaster struck but hopes were fading for those still trapped.
Thousands of children may be among more than 22,000 killed in the tremor that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday, but stories of survival still remained.
Emergency workers pulled four-yearold Yagiz Komsu from debris 105 hours after the quake hit, before also reaching his injured mother Ayfer Komsu.
Crowds who looked on in Adiyaman in Turkey were asked not to cheer to avoid scaring the child, who was given a jelly bean for sustenance.
A 10-day-old baby and his mother were also saved 90 hours after a building collapsed. The boy, also called Yagiz, had spent almost half his life under concrete in Hatay province.
But audible cries for help were fading after what Turkey’s president Tayyip
Erdogan called “the disaster of the century”. The magnitude 7.8 quake has already killed more than the 18,400 victims of Japan’s Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Relatives in Turkey wept as rescuers pulled 17-year-old Adnan Muhammed Korkut from a basement in Gaziantep, near the epicentre. He had been trapped for 94 hours, forced to drink his own urine.
“Thank God you arrived,” he said, embracing his mother.
One of the rescuers, identified only as Yasemin, hugged him as she said: “I’ve a son just like you. I swear I have not slept for four days... I was trying to get you out.”
Elsewhere, rescuers identified nine people trapped inside an apartment block in Iskenderun and pulled out six.
Among them was a woman who waved at onlookers as she was carried away on a stretcher. The building was only 600ft from the Mediterranean Sea and narrowly avoided being flooded
There were more celebrations with the rescues: Zeynep Ela Parlak, three, was cradled to safety after 103 hours. A married couple were pulled from the rubble in Iskenderun after spending 109 hours buried in a crevice. A German
team took 50 hours to free a woman from a house in Kirikhan.
In Kahramanmaras, two teenage sisters were saved, one rescuer playing a song on his phone as a distraction. And even pets such as Pamuk the dog were freed.
Experts say trapped people can live for a week or more but temperatures remain below freezing and the homeless have no place to shelter.
Meanwhile, morgues and cemeteries are overwhelmed. Bodies lie wrapped in blankets, rugs and tarps in streets. In Kahramanmaras, a sports hall is serving as a morgue. Around 12,000 buildings in Turkey have collapsed or sustained serious damage, according to officials.
In war-torn Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar Assad yesterday railed against the West during his first visit to the quake zone. He said: “The West has no humanitarianism, therefore politicising the situation in Syria is something they’d naturally do.”
The damage to Aleppo, Syria’s second and largest city, compounds its woes after a 12-year conflict, with much damage inflicted by Assad’s forces and ally Russia.
World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Dr Michael Ryan, WHO’s head of emergencies, were also arriving in Aleppo. A United Nations spokesman says the first earthquake-related aid convoy of 14 trucks had crossed into Syria. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party has also declared a ceasefire in its conflict with Turkey.
Japan and the UK are providing emergency blankets, sleeping mats, plastic sheets and tents to Syria.
Britain’s Disasters Emergency Committee has raised over £30m in its first day, it was revealed last night.
It includes donations from the Royal Family. Actors Daniel Craig, Tamsin Greig and Sir Michael Palin made impassioned pleas. Monty Python star Sir Michael said: “Your donations can fund vital medical aid, emergency shelter, food and water supplies in a desperate situation.”
President Joe Biden said: “Our hearts remain with the people of Turkey and Syria,” as the US pledged an initial £74m.
Your donations can provide some comfort in a truly desperate situation
SIR MICHAEL PALIN PLEA AS NATIONS GATHERS VITAL AID