Turkey-Syria earthquake: Boy, nine, pulled out alive after five days underground in arms of his mother
In the wasteland that scars the centre of Kahramanmaras in Turkey, we watched a pair of rescuers perched in a digger’s scoop as they investigated a great pile of concrete.
Their mobile bucket took them up into the sky as they probed a toppled building. No one had checked this spot before.
It is not surprising however.
In Kahramanmaras, more than 200 buildings have been destroyed by the earthquakes and tremors.
“Is anyone in there? If you can hear me tap on the wall,” said a rescuer.
“No, no one.”
Local officials face a difficult dilemma. Tens of thousands have been displaced by the disaster with many now sleeping in plastic tents or self-constructed dwellings on the roadside.
Security ‘rapidly deteriorating’ in Turkey as death tolls passes 28,000 – earthquake latest
The climate is harsh, particularly at night, and the authorities need to clear the rubble and begin the process of rebuilding.
But there is a conflicting demand – a moral obligation to search for survivors – and this is a necessarily skilled and time-consuming process.
At what used to be the Elbrar apartment block, we met a multi-national rescue team trying to release a woman called Leyla from deep beneath the pile.
And they’d been working all night to release her.
A multi-national rescue team was involved in the search for Leyla. Pic: AP
We spoke to an Italian rescuer called Gianluca Pesce, an engineer who was volunteering on the site.
“We’ve opened one corridor inside, a corridor (that is) like 50cm square, very small, just enough for one person. I went inside, through the tunnel for about seven metres. We start to call to her, she answered but her voice is weak.”
The rescuers, led by members of Israel’s national search and rescue unit, had spent 24 hours trying to reach her from the side and the top of the building. They had already managed to free the woman’s husband and daughter but Leyla was in a particularly difficult position.
“It’s going to take a long time,” said Mr Pesce.
Sometimes, a rescue is conducted in a matter of few minutes.
While we filmed at the Elbrar building, word spread about another emergency. Just 100 metres from where we were standing, a survivor had been located beneath the remains of an 11-storey block.
More than 200 buildings have been destroyed in Kahramanmaras
An excavator driver called Selmir Gizet told us he had been clearing the pile when he heard a strange sound from the rubble. He decided to raise the alarm.
Shortly afterwards, a man called Gohkan was dragged out of a hole and placed on a stretcher.
Gohkan was pulled out of a hole by rescuers
His feet were blistered and frost-bitten and his face was lacerated – we saw a large indentation on his forehead.
But he was alive, managing to survive more than four days underground.
“God is great” shouted the crowd, “God is great”.
With tears flowing down his cheeks, one rescuer told us: “I had a dream that I would find a man. We worked together as a team and put all efforts into rescuing him. God save him, I hope he survives.”
Back at the Elbrar block, the search and rescuers were looking for Leyla but they told us there had been an important development.
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The search for survivors in the rubble goes on
Leyla’s voice may have belonged to her son – the pair were lying together in the boy’s room when the earthquake struck.
“We were looking for a woman, we know there are a woman and child inside and when we came closer, it became apparent that we were talking to the child,” said search and rescue paramedic, Jonathan Rousso.
“The team have got to the point where they are on the other side of the wall, but they can’t cut (the wall), and there is a washing machine (in the way). You can’t cut through the washing machine. You have to find a way, so we are digging deeper.”
The operation was dangerous, and with frequent tremors their tunnels were at risk of collapse. We saw team members dash into the remains of a local shop, looking for timber and screws to prop up their underground channels.
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Over the course of an agonising evening, rescue team members managed to reach the boy.
He told them his name was Ridvan, Leyla’s nine-year-old son.
A doctor tried to stabilise him down below but there were serious concerns about his condition. The decision was made to get him out.
Ridvan, Leyla’s nine-year-old son, was saved and taken into an ambulance
On the surface, the volunteers called for quiet, for fear of alarming the boy, and Ridvan was carried on a stretcher through a concrete hole. He was greeted to the sound of whispers from the crowd that had grown to several hundred.
He had spent nearly five days underground, in the arms of his mother. He was cold and badly dehydrated and part of his body had been crushed. The paramedics sped him to hospital.
Ridvan pictured in hospital
Unfortunately, his mother Leyla did not survive, the rescue team unable to rescue her in time.
A national catastrophe and a family’s tragedy in a city marked by sorrow.
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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