Half his life under the rubble
Ten-day-old baby found alive as quake death toll hits more than 23,000
ASTONISHING rescues from the earthquake devastation continued yesterday after survivors endured days trapped under rubble.
Ten-day-old baby Yagiz Ulas was discovered with his mother under concrete slabs in Hatay, Turkey, after spending almost half his life stuck inside the ruins of his family’s home.
He looked remarkably calm as he was pulled out after more than 90 hours under the wreckage and then wrapped in a foil blanket, while his dazed mother was carried away on a stretcher.
Extraordinary survival stories inspired rescue crews from around the world – including Britain – to continue their searches, despite the rising death toll across Turkey and Syria, which has reached more than 23,000.
British rescue teams saved a two-year-old girl, a 30-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man, all trapped under mangled concrete and metal for 101 hours.
Other survivors included six members of the same family who huddled together in a small gap among the debris of a high-rise apartment block in Iskenderun, following the two huge quakes on Monday.
In Gaziantep, near the quake’s epicentre, 17-year-old Adnan Muhammed Korkut was rescued from a basement where he was trapped for 94 hours and forced to drink his own urine to survive.
Also in Hatay, 18-month-old Yusuf Huseyin was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building after 105 hours.
Experts have warned the chances of finding survivors alive are significantly reduced after the first 72 hours. But the rescues have provided hope in the devastated region, where mortuaries and cemeteries are overwhelmed.
Entire neighbourhoods have been demolished, prompting questions about disaster planning in a country which has raised £3.9billion to help it prepare for such crises.
Over the border in Syria, the White Helmets rescue group said they had saved more than 830 people and recovered around 500 bodies.
But aid organisations warned food supplies were running out, following delays in humanitarian aid convoys, while doctors said medical supplies were insufficient to treat even a fifth of the victims. Many in rebel-held north-west Syria were already reliant on aid following more than a decade of civil war.
The White Helmets accused the UN of botching its response, saying they have received almost no international help.
UN aid convoys only reached Syria on Thursday, due to damage to roads.
Volunteer Ammar al Salmo told the BBC hundreds more could have been saved with specialist equipment. Instead, rescuers moved debris with their bare hands, with at least one volunteer losing his fingernails in the search.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has reportedly visited the area and met doctors at a hospital in Aleppo.
In Turkey, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted ‘search efforts are not as fast as we wanted them to be.’
In Britain, an appeal to help victims raised more than £30million in its first 24 hours. Donations from the King and Queen Consort, and the Prince and Princess of Wales, helped the Disasters Emergency Committee’s fund soar to £32.9million.