Relatives celebrated as rescuers pulled a teenager from beneath the rubble of a collapsed building largely unscathed in Turkey early Friday, four days after a catastrophic earthquake killed more than 20,000.
Rescuers search for victims in the rubble of the destroyed Ronesans Residence 12-story building in Antakya, southern Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023. Turkey has for years tempted fate by not enforcing modern construction codes while allowing, and in some cases, encouraging, a real estate boom in earthquake-prone areas, experts say.
In Adiyaman, meanwhile, rescue crews pulled 4-year-old Yagiz Komsu from the debris of his home, 105 hours after the quake struck. They later managed to rescue his mother, Ayfer Komsu, who survived with a fractured rib, according the HaberTurk television, which broadcast the rescue live. The crowd was asked not to cheer or applaud to avoid scaring the child, who was given a jelly bean, the station reported.
There were still more stories: A married couple was pulled from the rubble in Iskenderun after spending 109 hours buried in a small crevice. A German team said it worked for more than 50 hours to free a woman from the rubble of a house in Kirikhan. In the hard-hit city of Kahramanmaras, two teenage sisters were saved, and video of the operation showed one emergency worker playing a pop song on his smartphone to distract them.
The disaster compounded suffering in a region beset by Syria's 12-year civil war, which has displaced millions of people within the country and left them dependent on aid and sent millions more seeking refuge in Turkey. Also Friday, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has been waging a separatist insurgency in Turkey’s mainly-Kurdish southeast, including some of the affected areas, said it was declaring a cease-fire. Meanwhile, Turkey’s conflict with Kurdish militants in Syria, linked to the PKK, has further complicated the delivery of aid to the region. On Thursday, Kurdish officials in Syria said that Turkish-backed Syrian rebels had blocked an aid convoy destined for earthquake victims.
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