“What day is it today?” asked a woman as she was pulled alive from the rubble after 228 hours of the earthquake that hit Turkey last week, Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported on Wednesday.
More than nine days after a massive earthquake shook Turkey and Syria, rescuers were still pulling people out of the rubble, defying predictions that the time for anyone to survive was over.
Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense also released a video showing crews rescuing a 77-year-old woman from rubble in the city of Adiyaman on Tuesday, some 212 hours after the earthquake.
Anadolu news agency identified her as Fatma Gungor and said her family embraced her after she was saved.
Mehmet Eryilmaz, a member of the rescue team, spoke about the moment they found the woman: “She was happy to see us. At first, I held her hand. We talked and talked and calmed her down.”
She also mentioned that she first asked for water, but said that they didn’t give anything without the intervention of the paramedics. Eryilmaz told Anadolu that the first thing she asked was: “What day is it?”
The woman also stated that her name was Ela and that she had two children, a girl and a boy, who were pulled from the rubble. According to the state news agency, she is a foreigner, but her nationality was not mentioned.
Also on Wednesday, another woman, identified as Melike İmamoğlu, 45, was rescued after 222 hours in the rubble in the city of Kahramanmaras, according to Turkish state television TRT Haber.
Earlier, teams in southern Turkey said they were still hearing the voices of trapped survivors.
Live footage streamed by CNN Turk affiliate of CNN on Tuesday, showed rescuers working in two areas of the Kahramanmaras region, where they were trying to save three sisters – but it is not clear if they survived.
In the same region, rescuers saved a 35-year-old woman who had been buried for about 205 hours, according to state broadcaster TRT Haber. Others were also rescued – two brothers, two men and a woman – all on Tuesday, eight days after the earthquake.
Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN which is in Hatay province, Turkey, says it is unusual for people to survive more than 100 hours trapped in the rubble – most are rescued within 24 hours.
However, he points out that freezing temperatures in the earthquake zone may be extending the survival time of those trapped.
“Cold is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it makes it very difficult, it’s below zero right now. On the other hand, it can reduce water demands. Perhaps this is contributing to survival,” she explained.
“There’s not a lot of data on how long people could survive in these situations, but we’re seeing these rescues 200 hours later,” he added.
“Traumatized population”
Meanwhile, in Syria, rescue operations are starting to shift towards recovery efforts, and UN officials are racing to funnel aid to survivors in the country through two new government-approved border crossings in Damascus.
Eleven trucks with UN aid crossed the border into northwest Syria through the Bab Al-Salam crossing on Tuesday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths wrote on Twitter. He also pointed out that another 26 trucks went to the region through the Bab Al-Hawa crossing.
On both sides of the border, the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized the need to “focus on trauma rehabilitation” when treating disaster-affected populations.
WHO representative in Turkey, Batyr Berdyklychev, highlighted the “growing problem” of a “traumatized population”, emphasizing the need for psychological and mental health services in the affected regions.
“People are only now starting to realize what happened to them after this period of shock,” Berdyklychev told a news conference in the Turkish city of Adana on Tuesday.
WHO is negotiating with Turkish authorities to ensure earthquake survivors have access to mental health services, the official added, noting that many people displaced by the earthquake to other areas of the country “will also need to be reached”.
WHO regional director for Europe Hans Kluge said the “immediate priority” for the 22 emergency medical teams sent by the organization to Turkey was “to deal with the high number of patients with trauma and catastrophic injuries”.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
