Turkey-Syria earthquake: Newborn baby, family of six and married couple among those saved from beneath rubble

A newborn baby and a family of six are among those to defy the odds and be pulled alive from the rubble in Turkey days after the devastating earthquake.

The rescues come as hopes fade of finding more survivors following Monday’s 7.8 magnitude tremor, in the face of freezing temperatures.

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Stories have been emerging of extraordinary human resilience in the face of adversity.

Family of six survives 101 hours under rubble

A husband, wife and their four children were rescued after spending 101 hours trapped beneath the debris.

The family managed to survive by huddling together in a small air pocket beneath a collapsed building in Iskenderun, Hatay province.

The tower block was only 600ft from the Mediterranean and the earthquake caused the sea to rise and flood the city centre to within feet of where they were trapped.

Newborn baby rescued

A 10-day-old baby was pulled from the rubble along with her mother 90 hours after catastrophe struck.

The infant, named as Yagiz Ulas, was found by search and rescue teams in Hatay province, according to officials.

Married couple saved

Rescue workers wept with relief as a married couple who spent 109 hours buried within a small crevice in the rubble were freed.

There were shouts of “God is great” as Haci Murat Kilinc and his wife, Raziye, were carried through a crowd on stretchers to a waiting ambulance in Iskenderun.

One rescue worker said Mr Kilinc had joked with the search team while still trapped beneath the rubble, trying to boost their morale.

He also requested cigarettes and tea while still buried, but had to be refused.

Joy as teenager found

Near the epicentre of the quake in the city of Gaziantep, emergency workers rescued Adnan Muhammed Korkut from the basement where had been trapped since the quake.

Trapped for 94 hours, the 17-year-old said he had been forced to drink his own urine to survive.

He smiled at the crowd of friends and relatives who cried tears of joy as he was carried out and placed on a stretcher.

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“Thank God you arrived,” he said, embracing his mother and others who leaned down to kiss and hug him as he was put into an ambulance.

“Thank you everyone.”

A rescue worker called Yasemin, told him: “I have a son just like you.

“I swear to you, I have not slept for four days. I swear I did not sleep; I was trying to get you out.”

Dramatic rescues

Dramatic rescues were also reported elsewhere, including in the city of Antakya, where crews saved a 10-year-old girl.

Search teams also found a 20-year-old survivor Ibrahim Kantrji in Kahramanmaras, while Eyup Ak, 60, was pulled to safety in Adiyaman, 104 hours after the earthquake.

‘Disaster of the century’

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called it “the disaster of the century”.

With morgues and cemeteries overwhelmed, dead bodies lie wrapped in blankets, rugs and tarpaulins in the streets of some cities.

The Turkish authorities said more than 19,000 people had been confirmed killed in the disaster so far in Turkey, with nearly 75,000 injured.

Some 3,384 have been confirmed killed on the other side of the border in Syria, bringing the total number of dead to more than 22,000.

The total outstrips the more than 18,400 who died in the 2011 earthquake off Fukushima, Japan, that triggered a tsunami and the estimated 18,000 people who died in a tremor near Istanbul in 1999.

‘They’ll die from the cold’

Meanwhile, in the city of Antakya, people scrambled for supplies being distributed from a lorry.

One survivor, Ahmet Tokgoz, called for the government to evacuate people from the region.

He said: “Especially in this cold, it is not possible to live here.

“If people haven’t died from being stuck under the rubble, they’ll die from the cold.”

The winter weather and damage to roads and airports have hampered the rescue effort.

The Turkish government has been criticised for being too slow to respond.

There will be a special programme called Disaster Zone: The Turkey-Syria Earthquake on Sky News on Friday evening at 9.30pm