Three new survivors, including a 14-year-old boy, have been rescued from the rubble of Antioch, in southern Turkey, more than 260 hours after the earthquake that devastated the region, Turkish authorities reported on Friday.
Mustafa, 33, and Mehmet, 26, were spared “261 hours” after the earthquake, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Twitter. The CNN Türk television channel identified them as Mustafa Avci and Mehmet Ali Sakiroglu.
Just before, at “hour 260”, a 14-year-old boy was also extracted from the ruins of a building in the center of Antioquia “after intense efforts”, the minister reported.
Mr. Koca specifies that the adolescent named Osman was “operated on” in a hospital in the province, without specifying the severity, but in the photo he appears conscious.
According to the DHA news agency, the two men, Mehmet and Mustafa, were among the rubble of the same building, in the center of Antioquia, when they were discovered by the emergency services. The Minister indicates that they were immediately transferred to the hospital.
“Our brother Mustafa remembered the phone number of a relative that he was able to call,” says the minister who also broadcasts a short video.
We hear the young man ask, “Is my mother okay?” and he showed a wide smile when his interlocutor, through tears, replies: “Everyone is fine!”
The latest official balance of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that shook Turkey and Syria on February 6 at 04:00 (01:00 GMT) exceeds 41,000 deaths.
The last survivors discovered by rescuers, as the search gradually ceases, were found in Hatay province around Antioch, near the Syrian border.
The chances of finding survivors appear lower further north, around the quake’s epicenter in mountainous regions such as Kahramanmaras, and even snowy regions of Elbistan and Adiyaman, where temperatures drop to minus 15 degrees Celsius at night, rescue teams said.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
