A 14-day-old baby girl was today pulled alive from the shattered ruins of a building in the city of Ercis in earthquake-ravaged Turkey - after 47 hours trapped in the rubble.
Azra - her name means 'Help' in Hebrew - was found naked, making her survival all the more remarkable because of the freezing temperatures gripping the region. The baby was handed to rescuers by her mother, who was alive but still trapped in the wreckage.
Emergency workers cradled the fragile child with enormous care as they scrambled over the rubble and debris to get her to a a medical unit. The rescue gives hope to hundreds in both Ercis and Van that loved ones still missing after Sunday's 7.2-magnitude earthquake may be alive.
Amazing survival story: Baby Azra - 14 days old, naked and trapped in a collapsed building for 47 hours - is rushed to a waiting medical unit in Ercis, Turkey
'Help': A doctor carries Azra, whose name means 'Help' in Hebrew, away from the ruins this morning. Her rescue gives hope to others whose loved ones remain missing
Double delight: Rescuers finally release the mother after plucking the baby from her arms
Tens of thousands of people spent a second night under canvas, in cars or huddled round small fires in towns rattled by aftershocks from a massive earthquake in eastern Turkey that killed hundreds.
The death toll from Sunday's quake rose to 366 overnight, and hundreds more are still missing after the quake and more than 200 aftershocks. Casualties were concentrated so far in the town of Ercis and the provincial capital Van, with officials still checking outlying areas. Seven people were rescued overnight.
Freed: Rescuers free a teenager from a collapsed building in Ercis. Mesut Ozan Yilmaz, 18, who survived for 32 hours under the rubble of a tea house, said it was like 'the judgement day'
Cutting through: Rescue workers spent a second night cutting and digging their way through shattered buildings in the hope of freeing survivors
Tale of two cities: Residents of Ercis, made homeless by the quake, sit around a fire as lights illuminate a damaged building behind them, while rescuers dig their way into a collapsed building in Van
Young survivor: A boy cries after being pulled from the remains of an internet cafe in Ercis. While the toddler sustained minor injuries, others in the cafe were not as lucky |
Fighting for life: A young girl in a serious condition
is cradled by a rescue worker as he runs toward
a waiting ambulance |
Crowds of residents gathered around collapsed buildings in the city, falling into an eerie silence as each person strained to hear even the faintest signs of life under the crumbled concrete and twisted steel.
The Disaster and Emergency Administration said 1,301 people had been injured and 2,262 buildings had collapsed.
The Turkish Red Crescent distributed up to 13,000 tents, and was preparing to provide temporary shelter for about 40,000 people, although there were no reliable estimates of the number of people left destitute.
The relief agency was criticised for failing to ensure that some of the most needy, particularly in villages, received tents as temperatures plummeted overnight.
Ahmet Arikes, the 60-year-old headman of Amik, a village outside Van that was reduced to rubble, said: 'We were sent 25 tents for 150 homes. Everybody is waiting outside, we've got small children, we've got nothing left.'
Television images showed desperate men pushing each other roughly to grab tents from the back of a Red Crescent truck. Read more>>
