“Even one more person” desperate struggle to rescue
▲ Hope found in the rubble
Seher, a 15-year-old Syrian girl who survived 210 hours following being buried under the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay, Turkey, is being rescued on a stretcher.
Hatay AFP Yonhap News
“God help!”
On the 15th (local time), Danise (21), who works at a sock shop in Adana, Turkey, was asked if she had heard of the rescue of a 77-year-old woman. Cheers. “Everyone here is praying with one heart,” he said. “Our only hope is that at least one more person come back miraculously alive.”
● “God helped… Miracles must continue”
According to local media, the woman’s name is Fatma Guinger, and she was rescued the day before from the rubble of a seven-story apartment building in Adayaman, southeast of the country. It has been regarding 212 hours (8 days and 20 hours) since the earthquake occurred. After rescuers confirmed the woman alive with a thermal camera, they kept talking to her to keep her unconscious, and following hours of work, she pulled him out of the wreckage.
▲ Hope found in the rubble
A man smiles as he waves a balloon to a bedridden child at a makeshift hospital on a warship docked in the port near Iskenderun, southern Turkey.
Iskenderun AP News
Even following the golden hour, ‘a sliver of hope’
Normally, 72 hours is called the golden time, but news of miraculous survival continues. In Hatay, a father and daughter were rescued following regarding 209 hours, and in Adiyaman, 45-year-old Ramazan Yusel was found following 207 hours. In Kahramanmaras, brothers Baki Jeninar (21) and Muhammed Enes Jeninar (17) were rescued following 200 hours of waiting for rescue while eating protein powder and urine.
Ezra (33), whom I met in downtown Adana, said, “If more rescue teams had arrived in the affected area earlier, more people might have been saved.”
Osleman, 60, who works as a driver in Adana, said, “I have been listening to news regarding the earthquake in my car every day since the earthquake.” “I believe there are more people who are still alive. I hope that another miracle will continue to be heard.”
As of the 14th, the death toll exceeded 41,000, including those in Syria. The official death toll in Turkey was 35,418, making it the worst disaster in Turkey’s history. Hans Kluge, director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Office for Europe, called the earthquake “the worst natural disaster in Europe in 100 years”.
In Syria, which has been in a civil war for 12 years, even following hearing the voices of survivors at the site of a collapsed building, they are unable to rescue them because they do not have professional rescue equipment such as thermal imaging cameras and special cutting tools. As a result, Syrian refugees crossed the Turkiye border and formed new tent villages. “We are promoting humanitarian aid for Syrians,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Chausoglu Turkiye said, but “we will not allow new refugees from Syria to enter the country.”
There were also those who handed warm hands towards Syrian refugees. Ahya (68), who lives in Antakya, gave her home to a Syrian family who had nowhere to go due to the earthquake. He said that on the day of the earthquake, he mightn’t stand to see those shivering on the street in the rain, so he brought them home. There are six families of the victims who were brought into the house like that. Ahya, whose brother-in-law was a soldier in the Korean War, said, “Everyone is in a difficult situation regardless of race, nationality, or religion.” said
On the night of the 16th, the South Korean government will dispatch 2 units of the Korea Emergency Rescue Team (KDRT) with 21 personnel by military transport and deliver a total of 55 tons of relief goods such as tents and blankets.
Reporters Adana Kwak So-young, Seoul Choi Young-kwon, and Seo Yu-mi
