LONDON: British volunteer rescuers have saved a mother and her 5-year-old child who were trapped for 68 hours under a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, the Daily Mail reported.
The home of 33-year-old Serap Topal and her son Mehmet was reduced to rubble when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck on Monday.
The two were trapped in darkness for three days, covered in dust and debris, with the mother in pain from crush injuries. They were finally rescued by workers from SARAID, a British volunteer group, along with a German search-and-rescue team.
A video capturing the moment they were rescued shows Serap bursting into tears of fatigue and relief, while a volunteer carries Mehmet, who appears unhurt. Onlookers can be heard chanting the Arabic words for “God is Greatest.”
Entire streets in Kahramanmaras, the closest city to the quake’s epicenter, were reduced to rubble. Hundreds of tents were set up as shelters in a sports stadium. About 50 bodies covered in blankets lay on the floor of a sports hall.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces and sent troops to help, visited Kahramanmaras on Wednesday, and said there had been early problems with road and airport access to the region, but “we are better today.”
The death toll from the Turkiye-Syria earthquakes passed 16,000 on Thursday, with the World Health Organization estimating the final toll could exceed 20,000.
