Turkey-Syria earthquake: Trapped boy given water by rescue workers
Heart-wrenching footage has captured the moment rescue workers gave a little boy water with a bottle cap before pulling him out of wreckage nearly 45 hours after the Turkey-Syria earthquake.
The young child, named as Muhammed Ahmed from Syria, had been trapped underneath rubble following the 7.8 magnitude quake since the early hours of Monday.
Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu shared a clip on Twitter of the hard-to-watch moment.
“Well done Muhammed. Our search and rescue team rescued Syrian citizen Muhammed Ahmed from the rubble in Antakya,” he said.
Turkey-Syria earthquake – live updates
The video shows the dehydrated little boy drinking water out of the bottle cap, carefully given to him by a rescue worker, as he was trapped underneath rubble from the neck down and unable to use his arms.
He can be heard crying in between sips as he signals for more water.
It comes as hopes of finding more survivors trapped in the rubble are fading, with the death toll rising to more than 11,000.
Stretched rescue teams have toiled through Turkey and Syria in a bid to find more signs of life in the aftermath of one of the world’s deadliest earthquakes in more than a decade.
Ilan Kelman, professor of Disasters and Health at University College London, said the window for post-earthquake search-and-rescue is “rapidly closing”.
More on the earthquake from Sky News:
Gruesome, technical work: How an earthquake search and rescue mission is conducted
Video: Crowd erupts as children saved
Man travels from Wales to Turkey to find family buried in rubble
An eight-year-old boy is pulled out from the rubble in Hatay, Turkey
“Typically, few survivors are pulled out after 72 hours – yet every life saved is essential and some people are extricated after many days,” he said.
“Time is always the enemy, as seen in Turkey and Syria. People die due to immediate medical needs such as bleeding to death or succumbing to crush injuries; due to aftershocks that collapse precarious structures with people underneath.”
He added that many people could die from hypothermia due to the plummeting temperatures or lack of food and water while awaiting rescue.
Search teams from more than two dozen countries have joined tens of thousands of local emergency personnel in the mass rescue operation – while aid pledges have poured in from around the world.
In the Turkish city of Malatya, bodies were placed side by side on the ground, covered in blankets, while rescuers waited for funeral vehicles to pick them up, according to former journalist Ozel Pikal, who saw eight bodies pulled from the ruins of building.
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Drone shows quake impact in Syrian town
Mr Pikal, who took part in the rescue efforts, believes some of the victims have frozen to death as temperatures dipped to -6C.
“Today isn’t a pleasant day because as of today there is no hope left in Malatya,” he said. “No one is coming out alive from the rubble.”
He said a hotel building collapsed in the city and more than 100 people could be trapped, and there is a shortage of rescuers in the area, while the cold has slowed down rescue efforts by volunteers and government teams.
Road closures and widespread damage in the region have also affected mobility and access.
“Our hands cannot pick up anything because of the cold,” Mr Pikal said. “Work machines are needed.”
The fast-moving developments on Trump’s Ukraine peace deal are dominating the G20 summit in South Africa, as European leaders scramble to put together a counter-proposal to the US-Russia 28-point plan and reinsert Ukraine into these discussions.
European countries are now working up proposals to put to President Trump ahead of his deadline of Thursday to agree a deal.
Ukraine is in a tight spot. It cannot reject Washington outright – it relies on US military support to continue this war – but neither can it accept the terms of a deal that is acutely favourable to Russia, requiring Ukraine to give up territory not even occupied by Moscow and reducing its army.
Overnight, the UK government has reiterated its position that any deal must deliver a “just and lasting peace”.
Ukraine war latest: Kyiv to discuss ending war in talks in Switzerland
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Keir Starmer calls for growth plan at G20
The prime minister, who spoke with E3 allies President Macron of France, Chancellor Merz of Germany and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine on the phone on Friday, is having more conversations today with key partners as they work out how to handle Trump and improve this deal for Ukraine.
One diplomatic source told me allies are being very careful not to criticise Trump or his approach for fear of exacerbating an already delicate situation.
Instead, the prime minister is directing his attacks at Russia.
Read more:
Trump’s 28-point Ukraine peace plan in full
Analysis: We could all pay if Europe doesn’t guarantee Ukraine’s security
Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends a plenary session on the first day of the G20 Leaders’ Summit. Pic: Reuters
“There is only one country around the G20 table that is not calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine and one country that is deploying a barrage of drones and missiles to destroy livelihoods and murder innocent civilians,” he said on Friday evening.
“Time and again, Russia pretends to be serious about peace, but its actions never live up to its words.”
Pic: AP
On the Trump plan, the prime minister said allies are meetin on Saturday “to discuss the current proposal on the table, and in support of Trump’s push for peace, look at how we can strengthen this plan for the next phase of negotiations”.
Strengthening the plan really means that they want to rebalance it towards Ukraine’s position and make it tougher on Russia.
“Ukraine has been ready to negotiate for months, while Russia has stalled and continued its murderous rampage. That is why we must all work together with both the US and Ukraine, to secure a just and lasting peace once and for all,” said the prime minister.
“We will continue to coordinate closely with Washington and Kyiv to achieve that. However, we cannot simply wait for peace.
“We must strain every sinew to secure it. We must cut off Putin’s finance flows by ending our reliance on Russian gas. It won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Pic: AP
Europeans hadn’t even seen this deal earlier in the week, in a sign that the US is cutting other allies out of negotiations – for now at least.
Starmer and other European leaders want to get to a position where Ukraine and Europe are at least at the table.
There is some discussion about whether European leaders such as Macron and Meloni might travel to Washington to speak to Trump early next week in order to persuade him of the European and Ukrainian perspective, as leaders did last August following the US-Russian summit in Alaska.
But Sky News understands there are no discussions about the PM travelling to Washington next week ahead of the budget.
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