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.
President Trump has signed an order banning people from 12 countries from entering the US.
He said Sunday’s attack in Colorado had shown “the extreme dangers” of “foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come as temporary visitors and overstay their visas”.
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” the president said.
The countries affected are: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
The White House said some had a “significant terrorist presence” and accused others of poor screening for dangerous individuals, as well as not accepting deported citizens.
People from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will face partial restrictions.
Mr Trump’s proclamation said America must ensure people entering don’t have “hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles” – and don’t support terror groups.
Protests took place when Mr Trump announced his first travel ban in 2017. Pic: Reuters
The move echoes a controversial and chaotic order enacted eight years ago during his first term, when he banned people from predominately Muslim countries.
The countries initially targeted then were Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
President Trump said on Thursday that policy was a “key part of preventing major foreign terror attacks on American soil”.
His new list notably removes Syria after Mr Trump met the country’s leader recently on a trip to the Middle East.
Athletes competing in the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics will also be exempt, as will others such as permanent US residents and Afghans with special immigrant visas.
The list was put together after the president asked homeland security officials and the director of national intelligence to compile a report on countries whose citizens could pose a threat.
The ban takes effect from 9 June – but countries could be removed or added.
The proclamation states it will be reviewed within 90 days, and every 180 days after, to decide if it should be “continued, terminated, modified, or supplemented”.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
President Trump’s first travel restrictions in 2017 were criticised by opponents and human rights groups as a “Muslim ban”.
It led to some chaotic scenes, including tourists, students and business travellers prevented from boarding planes – or held at US airports when they landed.
Mr Trump denied it was Islamophobic despite calling for a ban on Muslims entering America in his first presidential campaign.
It faced legal challenges and was modified until the Supreme Court upheld a third version in June 2018, calling it “squarely within the scope of presidential authority”.
Humanitarian aid must be allowed into Gaza “at scale” by Israel to avoid a “generation of children that won’t have a chance in life,” the director of the UN’s World Food Programme has told Sky News.
In early March – before Israel resumed its military operations in the Gaza Strip – all aid was blocked from entering the region.
Despite limited aid now being distributed to Gaza through a US and Israeli-backed organisation, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire near one of the sites.
Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), has urged Israel to allow international aid to “get in and get in at scale”.
“We can’t wait for this,” she told The World with Yalda Hakim. “We need safe, unfettered, clear access all the way in and we’re not getting that right now.”
Ms McCain said people in Gaza were “starving, they’re hungry, they’re doing what they can do to feed their families”.
She added: “It’s very, very important that people realise that the only way to stave off malnutrition, catastrophic food insecurity and, of course, famine would be by complete and total access for organisations like mine.”
Ms McCain said the WFP team was “talking every day” to the Israeli government to try to resume aid deliveries.
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis on Monday. Pic: AP
“We’re not going to give up, we do believe that it’s not only necessary but it’s urgent that we get in and get in at scale,” she said.
“We’re looking at a generation of children that won’t have a chance in life because they haven’t had the proper nutrients.
“Right now, we’re looking at over 500,000 people within Gaza that are catastrophically food insecure.”
Ms McCain added: “I try and put myself in their situation: I’m a mother and grandmother, and I cannot imagine having my children ask me for food and me not being able to give it them.
“I don’t know what that does to a human spirit but I don’t want to see any more of that as a humanitarian aid worker.”
Ms McCain, the widow of the late US presidential candidate John McCain, said she believes in “principled, humanitarian distribution” of aid.
Asked if she thought Hamas was taking aid, she replied: “I have not seen anything like that. I have no way of knowing because I’ve not been there in person.”
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How Israel’s aid plan unravelled
Aid distribution centres in Gaza were closed on Wednesday after Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli gunfire near one of its sites.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – which is endorsed by Israel – said the centres would be shut “for renovations, organisation, and efficiency improvements”. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) warned nearby roads would be considered “combat zones”.
It came after 27 Palestinians were killed while waiting for aid to be distributed in the Rafah area of southern Gaza on Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The IDF said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots, about half a kilometre from the aid distribution site of the GHF. It denied shooting at civilians at the aid centre.
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That incident came two days after reports that 31 people were killed as they walked to a distribution centre run by the GHF in the Rafah area.
However the IDF said its forces “did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false”.
It’s only been ten days since Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin crazy following a series of Russian attacks on Ukraine.
But now the attacks have been flowing in the opposite direction, it feels like the Russian president has seen an opportunity to win back Washington’s affections.
It involves playing the victim.
Ukraine war latest: Putin wants revenge for airbase attacks, says Trump
The Kremlin, for example, said the leaders’ call was focussed on Ukrainian attacks “on Russian civilians”.
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Ukraine drone attack: new video analysed
Putin accused Ukraine of relying on ‘terror’. Pic: Reuters
And before it, Putin accused Ukraine’s leadership of being a “terrorist organisation”, in his first comments since the spate of assaults began.
He was referring to Saturday’s bombing of a highway bridge in the Bryansk region, which left seven dead and dozens injured after part of a passenger train was crushed.
No one has claimed responsibility but Russia blames Ukraine.
“The current Kyiv regime does not need peace at all,” said President Putin.
“What is there to talk about? How can we negotiate with those who rely on terror?”
It’s exactly what Ukraine has been saying about Russia for the last three years, but there was no mention of that. The Kremlin is in full-on victim mode.
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Will Putin go nuclear?
The aim, I think, is to turn the tables on Ukraine, cast itself as the injured party and make Donald Trump believe that Russia has a right to respond to the drone attack on its long-range bombers.
The tactic may well have worked.
“President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields,” Trump wrote on social media after the call.
Did he try to talk Putin out of responding? We don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like it. If anything, Trump actually announced Russia’s retaliation himself.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
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And even though Putin discussed the drone attack with Trump, he still hasn’t commented on it in public – four days on.
Russia wants to be seen as the victim, but it doesn’t want to look weak, so an embarrassing episode like that is kept out of the headlines.
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