Turkey earthquake: Sisters ‘lost hope’ before being rescued from rubble after four days
Two sisters who spent more than four days trapped in the rubble of their collapsed apartment say the whole block slid in one direction as last week’s enormous earthquake struck in southern Turkey.
They were speaking to Sky News as the people of Kahramanmaras begin the process of reclaiming their community from the destruction that marks their city.
Plastic tents have been erected in parks and plazas and the authorities have started to restore power and water.
While the survivors will face months or even years of discomfort as they begin to rebuild their lives, there are acts of courage they can draw upon.
Each of a small number of residents rescued from the rubble possesses a tale of wonder.
We first caught a glimpse of sisters Zeynep and Elife Civi as they were carried out of the remains of their seven-storey apartment block on a pair of battered-looking stretchers after it collapsed in the early hours of Monday 6 February.
Zeynep, 22, was crying and shivering in a pair of polka-dot pyjamas.
“Yes, I was crying because I was so happy,” she said. “I was shivering because it was very cold. It was so cold, I couldn’t feel my feet.”
We met them at Kahramanmaras’s University Hospital, where they are now recovering from their ordeal.
Elife says the ‘whole room slid’
Law student Elife is 20. She told us she would not have survived without Zeynep.
“I was lucky to have my big sister with me, because if I had been by myself it would have been much harder,” she said. “We were under the bed. We survived together. It was cold and we were afraid.”
I asked Elife what happened when the tremors began. “We thought it would shake a little and stop but that didn’t happen,” she said.
“The building slid – I felt it slide like this,” she said, indicating how the entire building started to move in one direction. “The whole room slid.”
Zeynep says she had ‘lost hope’
Zeynep made a critical decision when she realised the block was about to implode.
“I was about to go to my mother’s (room),” she said. “I stopped at that moment and waited. I heard the sound of the building crashing down, floor by floor, like ‘boom’, ‘boom’. At that moment, I put the head of Elife (under) the bed, and then I got under the bed. That is how it happened.”
The Civi sisters were trapped in an air pocket under Zeynep’s bed with no possible means of escape.
“We were close to each other,” Zeynep said, “but we had enough room to turn left or right and the height was like this,” she explained, putting her hand just above her head. “I was able to sit up when my legs went numb and I turned to the other side.”
Zeynep pictured being rescued by an Israeli-Turkish team
It was damp and cold – the temperature plunging below zero at night – and they had nothing to eat and drink. Did their predicament seem hopeless, I asked.
“Yes,” Elife replied. “I thought that if they didn’t rescue us on the last day, that would be it. I couldn’t go on without water. I couldn’t sleep because I was so thirsty. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t scream. We had to scream when we heard a sound (outside), but I was no longer able to scream. I couldn’t scream anymore.”
Many of their neighbours in the block, and in nearby buildings, lost their lives. We saw local people trying to retrieve the bodies of residents that were wedged between the cracks of concrete. Seeking some dignity, volunteers held up blankets to shield the victims from view.
The whereabouts of thousands of people in Kahramanmaras are currently unknown – a number that includes Zeynep and Eilfe’s mother and father, who are missing.
The people of Kahramanmaras are trying to reclaim their community
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Their daughters are deeply concerned. Zeynep said: “I was calling out for my mother – are you ok? I couldn’t hear anything. It was very bad.”
The sisters did have company of sorts under the rubble. There was a man with a baby in an air pocket on the floor below them, and together they tried to raise the alarm. On the morning of the fourth day, they heard a member of an Israeli-Turkish rescue team call out to them.
“I had some cream in my hand and so I started tapping with the (cream’s) box,” Elife said. “The man who was under us was also shouting – we had a connection at that moment.
“I thought the rescue team had come to rescue the man and child but they came to us. They heard our voices and they asked my name. I said ‘Elife’ and I told them my sister’s name. It was an unbelievable moment. At that moment I said: ‘We’re saved.'”
The devastation in Kahramanmaras is immense
By that stage, Zeynep had already given up hope of being found, she told us.
“We heard some machines, but that was on the first day and the second day. I told Elife: ‘They have forgotten us, why didn’t they come, why has no one come to rescue us?'”
Zeynep went on: “On the last day I had lost hope. I told Elife: ‘We will die, you know?’ Finally, we heard a low sound and then they came to us and said ‘we can hear you’ and we did our best to make a sound. Eventually they brought us out.”
The sisters suffered cuts and bruising and were badly dehydrated. Both still feel desperately tired, but are glad to be alive.
How will this experience change your life, I asked Elife.
“I believe that everything happens in a second,” she said. “Maybe we are alive now, but we can disappear tomorrow. That’s why I will live life to the fullest.”
Their story of resilience shines like a light in this devastated city. Their fellow residents – and survivors – will require similar qualities to get through the coming months and years.
The sole surviving guest of a lunch where three others died after being served food laced with toxic mushrooms has told an Australian court that the actions of murderer Erin Patterson have left him feeling “half alive”.
Ian Wilkinson, who received a liver transplant and spent months in hospital after the poisoning in July 2023, described how he had been left traumatised as he delivered his victim impact statement at Patterson’s pre-sentencing hearing in Melbourne.
Patterson, 50, was found guilty last month of luring her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, to lunch at her home in Leongatha and poisoning them with individual portions of Beef Wellington that contained toxic death cap mushrooms.
A jury also found her guilty of the attempted murder of Mr Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.
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Australian mother found guilty of killing three relatives by serving toxic lunch
Speaking at the start of the two-day hearing, Mr Wilkinson, a Baptist pastor, said the death of his wife had left him bereft.
“It’s a truly horrible thought to live with that somebody could decide to take her life. I only feel half alive without her,” he said, breaking down in tears.
“It’s one of the distressing shortcomings of our society that so much attention is showered on those who do evil and so little on those who do good.”
Ian and Heather Wilkinson. Pic: The Salvation Army Australia – Museum
‘I bear her no ill will’
He described Gail and Don Patterson, the parents of Erin Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson, as the closest people to him after his wife and family.
“My life is greatly impoverished without them,” Mr Wilkinson said.
“I’m distressed that Erin has acted with callous and calculated disregard for my life and the lives of those I love. What foolishness possesses a person to think that murder could be the solution to their problems, especially the murder of people who have only good intentions towards her?”
Pic: AP
He called on Patterson, who said the poisonings were accidental and continues to maintain her innocence, to confess to her crimes.
“I encourage Erin to receive my offer of forgiveness for those harms done to me with full confession and repentance. I bear her no ill will,” he said.
“I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim and she has become the victim of my kindness.”
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The court received a total of 28 victim impact statements, of which seven were read publicly.
Don and Gail Patterson. Picture: Facebook
‘An irreparably broken home’
Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson – who was invited to the lunch but declined – spoke of the devastating impact on the couple’s two children.
“The grim reality is they live in an irreparably broken home with only a solo parent, when almost everyone else knows their mother murdered their grandparents,” he said in a statement that was read out on his behalf.
Patterson attended the court in person on Monday rather than watch via a video link from prison which she did during a hearing earlier this month.
The hearing is scheduled to continue on Tuesday.
Patterson faces a potential life sentence for each of the murders and 25 years for attempted murder.
She has 28 days from the day of her sentencing to appeal, but has not yet indicated whether she will do so.
Israel pounded the outskirts of Gaza City overnight, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government vowed to press on with a planned offensive on the city.
Families streamed out of the city as the explosions hit.
“I stopped counting the times I had to take my wife and three daughters and leave my home in Gaza City,” said Mohammad, 40.
“No place is safe, but I can’t take the risk. If they suddenly begin the invasion, they will use heavy fire.”
Mahmoud Abedrabo mourns over the body of his son Hamada in Gaza City on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Others said they would prefer to die and not leave.
“We are not leaving, let them bomb us at home,” said Aya, 31, who has a family of eight, adding that they couldn’t afford to buy a tent or pay for the transportation.
“We are hungry, afraid and don’t have money,” she said.
Mourners pray next to the body of Palestinian boy Hamada Abedrabo on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Witnesses said that overnight they heard nonstop explosions in Zeitoun and Shejaia.
Tanks shelled houses and roads in Sabra, and buildings were blown up in Jabalia.
On Sunday, the IDF said its forces had returned to combat in Jabalia to strengthen its control of the area and dismantle militant tunnels.
Smoke rises following an Israeli strike in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
It added that the operation there “enables the expansion of combat into additional areas and prevents Hamas terrorists from returning to operate in these areas.”
This month, Israel approved a plan to seize control of Gaza City. The offensive isn’t expected to start for another few weeks.
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In the meantime, mediators in Egypt and Qatar are trying to resume ceasefire talks between the two sides.
On Friday, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said that Gaza City will be razed unless Hamas releases all its remaining hostages and ends the war on Israel’s terms.
Mourners transport the body of Ahmed Balata on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Around half of Gaza’s two million residents currently live in the city and on Friday a global hunger monitor said that Gaza City and its surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine that will likely spread.
Israel said the monitor ignores steps Israel has taken since late July to increase aid supplies into and across Gaza.
Eight more people died of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry on Saturday.
281 people, including 114 children, have now died of malnutrition and starvation since the war started, according to the ministry.
The war began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel, mainly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
Since then, Israel has killed at least 62,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, and internally displaced nearly its entire population.
Two married couples have died after a British car veered off the road and crashed in Germany, according to police.
The fatal accident happened shortly after midnight on Saturday in the trees near a highway in the Kassel district, north of Hesse in central Germany.
The 32-year-old male driver, a 31-year-old female passenger, a 32-year-old female passenger, and a 30-year-old female passenger all died at the scene, despite the efforts of German emergency services.
Sky News understands UK officials have not been contacted for assistance.
At roughly 12.30am on Saturday, the car appears to have veered off the road and crashed into nearby trees around 30m from the road, according to the Kassel police department.
Pic: Feuerwehr Reinhardshagen
One of the victim’s phones automatically alerted the emergency services to the incident, who sent an ambulance to the scene.
Soon, fire engines, ambulances, command vehicles and emergency support vehicles were all dispatched.
When emergency workers arrived, the car was lying on its side, wedged between several trees.
It wasn’t until they removed the roof that they found all four passengers.
Pic: Feuerwehr Reinhardshagen
The accident happened on Highway L3229
The emergency workers who dealt with the victims were immediately supported by the specialist mental health workers at the fire station in Reinhardshagen.
“This high number of deaths is an extraordinary operation for our Reinhardshagen Volunteer Fire Department,” said a fire department spokesperson.
“For some of the emergency personnel, it is the first time they have been confronted with death in this way.
“Therefore, a great deal is being done to help us process these images. We will also discuss this among ourselves and within families, because not everyone can easily shake off what they have seen.”
An investigation into the accident is ongoing and is being conducted by the Hofgeismar police station.
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