Although there is still a minimal chance of finding survivors, the options are running out for rescue teams.Continue reading
The Hungarian Pest County Search and Rescue Service has received good news from Turkey regarding 15-year-old Ali, who was trapped under the rubble after the earthquake. The boy has managed to survive the disaster, even though earlier there were reports that the rescue teams were unable to revive him.
“There are miracles and we are experiencing one of them with the Turkish rescue team. We just got off the phone with the head of the Turkish rescue team who confirmed the news that Ali is alive. The boy wanted to live more than anyone and survived the impossible,” reads the rescue team’s Facebook post. The 15-year-old boy was rescued from the rubble by the Turkish army and Turkish rescue teams. According to the news, one of his legs was disabled, but he is alive, along with his three sisters and his mother.
The Pest County Search and Rescue Service had previously reported on Ali’s situation, but that report was extremely sad. The boy and his family were living on the third floor of a five-story building, and after the earthquake, they immediately fled the apartment. This meant that at the moment when the building collapsed, the whole family was squeezed into a two to three square meter place in the stairwell. Rescuers found the family 32 hours after the disaster, in a catastrophic situation.
As reported, members of the family were crushed under the rubble, one on top of the other. After they managed to reach Ali, they discovered that a dead relative was lying on top of him, his body pressing down on the boy, who was also being crushed by a door and several tons of weight. Hungarian rescuers fought for 38 hours to save the boy from four directions, but failed to save him at the time, and it was believed that the boy had also died under the rubble as he hovered between life and death.
The Hungarian rescue team has now written about Ali that the boy was stronger than anyone would have believed and chose life. The reason that he could be saved now is that the next phase of the rescue operations has started with construction machinery being used to demolish the buildings in an attempt to save lives, and this is how the Turkish teams found the boy.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey in the early hours of February 6, with another subsequent quake following hours later, affecting 10 provinces and causing huge devastation not just in Turkey but in Syria as well. As the first earthquake struck at night, when many people were sleeping, the death toll is extremely high. Current figures put the death toll in Turkey and Syria at over 46,500. Meanwhile, it has now been announced that Turkey has ended most search and rescue operations, meaning that the search for survivors is now over, two weeks after the disaster.
Featured photo via Budai Bálint (Pest Megyei Kutató-Mentő Szolgálat)
