Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Monday 27 January 2020

Turkish teams hunt

for quake survivors

as death toll hits 38

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — the rubble of a collapsed
Working against the clock apartment building in the
in freezing temperatures, city of Elazig. They had
Turkish rescue teams pulled been trapped for 28 hours.
more survivors from col- The quake also injured over
lapsed buildings Sunday, 1,600 people but at least 45
days after a powerful mag- survivors have been pulled
nitude 6.8 earthquake hit alive from the rubble so
the country's east. Rescued far, Turkish President Recep
survivors wept with grati- Tayyip Erdogan told a news
tude for their efforts. conference Sunday in Is-
Turkish authorities said the tanbul.
death toll rose to at least More than 780 aftershocks In this image taken from video made available by Ankara Municipality Fire Department shows a
38 people from the mag- rocked the region as over rescuer pulling out a girl from the rubble of a collapsed building, in Elazig, Turkey, Saturday Jan.
25, 2020. A two-year-old girl and her mother were pulled from the rubble of an apartment building
nitude 6.8 earthquake that 3,500 rescue experts scram- on Saturday more than 24 hours after an earthquake struck eastern Turkey.
struck Friday night. bled through wrecked Associated Press
Turkish television showed buildings to reach survivors,
Ayse Yildiz, 35, and her working around the clock. Mustafa Pasa neighbor- and distributed 17,000 hot help for the victims of the
2-year-old daughter Yus- Rescue teams concentrat- hood and the nearby town meals. quake. He then attended
ra being dragged out of ed their efforts in the city's of Sivrice. The agency said 76 build- the funeral of five members
One rescued couple was ings were destroyed and of the same family — a mar-
reunited with a Syrian stu- more than 1,000 were ried couple, their daughter
dent who had helped damaged by the quake. and two grandchildren —
to dig them out of their Unmanned aerial drones with other ministers and of-
collapsed home with his were being used to survey ficials. The 12-year-old boy
hands. damaged neighborhoods was buried in the same cof-
"He is our hero and angel," and coordinate rescue ef- fin as his baby sister.
a weeping Dudane Aydin forts. "You arrived two months
said of Mahmud al Osman The Turkish Disaster and ago. I wish you had stayed
in an interview on Turkey's Emergency Management a little longer," the children's
state-run Anadolu news Presidency said 20 of the father, Serhat Aslan, said of
agency. aftershocks measured his daughter.
Her husband Zulkuf add- magnitude 4.0 or above, On Saturday, the president
ed: "When I saw the light including a magnitude 4.3 visited the disaster zone
of Mahmud's phone, we quake that hit the neigh- to inspect the rescue op-
started shouting for help. boring province of Malatya eration, meet with injured
Then we knew we would on Sunday morning, people in the hospital and
get out." Erdogan said every effort attend the funeral of a
He said Mahmud helped was being made to find mother and son.
him out but when the stu- survivors and promised to Erdogan also condemned
dent tried to rescue his wife house displaced residents what he called a "smear
her leg was trapped by de- as soon as possible. campaign" on social me-
bris. "Turkey has begun to heal dia by those questioning
"Some locals held Mahmud the wounds of this great di- the Turkish government's
by the legs and stretching saster in unity, togetherness preparations for earth-
towards my wife he worked and coming together," he quakes. A prosecutor in An-
to save her. After saving my said. kara has opened an inves-
wife, he tried to help oth- At least 104 people were tigation into social media
ers," the man said. receiving hospital treat- posts about Friday's quake.
As overnight temperatures ment after the quake, 13 Earthquakes are frequent
dropped to -5 degrees of them in intensive care, in Turkey, which sits atop
Celsius (23 degrees Fahren- Health Minister Fahrettin two major fault lines.
heit), emergency teams set Koca said. Across Turkey, there was an
up more than 9,500 tents Interior Minister Suleyman outpouring of support for
for displaced residents Soylu promised financial the quake victims. q