Lhe ruins of a building in Jindires, in Syria, hid in its bowels a life that refused to go out. Among the rubble of the earthquake that devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria last Monday, and still attached to her mother, rescuers found a 7-hour-old babyaccording to the calculations of the doctors who attended her.
The accounts of the rescuers indicate that in the midst of the death that roams among collapsed buildings, and while they were looking for survivors, they sawThey received the first sign of the little girl: the umbilical cord held her together with her mother Aafraas if it were a premonition that they would remain together for life, although death separated them prematurely.
The little girl was found by surprise. rescue personnel I searched among twisted iron and mountains of cement survivors of an earthquake that seemed a faithful portrayal of the end of the world, if the world were to end in this way.
“We were looking for Abu Rudayna (nickname for Abdalá) and his family. First we find his sister, then his wife Aafra, then Abu Rudayna. They were together against each other,” Khalil Sawadi, a close friend of the family who perished together, explained to AFP in shock.
In the story, the cousin of the family of this little account that upon finding it, another relative cut the umbilical cord and ran with the girl raised in her arms as a princess is raised at birth to be known by the people; but in Syria there was no kingdom and no subjects, only ruins and pain. As she ran with the baby, another man threw a blanket over her body. whitened by ashes, cold and dust.
In a race against time, the girl was taken to Afrin hospital, the closest city to Jindires, and placed under medical observation.
“He arrived with his limbs numb from the cold, his blood pressure had dropped. We did first aid on her and put her under infusion because she had gone too long without being fed, ”Dr. Hani Maaruf explained to AFP, adding that she weighed 3.17 kilos.
As the rescued baby was placed in an incubator, the lifeless bodies of their parents and siblings were dumped thousands of miles in the living room of Sawadi’s house, waiting for his funeral.
tear life from rubble
As if it were her only hope, a girl clung to the rescuer who pulled her out of the rubble. The hours of this rescue had become eternal, and heA minor under 10 years of age had the body imprisoned among rubble and iron that filled the streets of Hatay, in southeastern Turkey.
The White Helmets (a relief force similar to the Civil Defense) had rummaged through the night, moving each stone accompanied by the obligatory question: Is there anyone alive there? With the passage of time, only silence responded to the call of the lifeguards until a miracle happened: a weak voice answered to get her out of there.
With the little strength that the rescuers have left, harassed by the cold and exhaustion, a group of men pounced on the rockss and with their hands they began to clear the way to rescue the girl. When they found her, one of her rescuers stretched out her arms and slowly pulled her out. She was dressed in a pink jumpsuit, a black sweatshirt, and stockings.
“Where is my mom?” asked the little girl.
— Your mother is in the hospital, answered the lifeguard.
The same fate of this little girl whose name has not been revealed by the authorities or the rescuers in Turkey, it was run by Haroon, a boy that the White Helmets they ripped off the concrete that crushed him for more than 20 hours, his body against a bed.
“Come on, Haron, let’s go,” the rescuers told him, while the little boy tried to get out of the hole to which the earthquake of magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale condemned him.
Beside him, a group of men beat each toque with hammers and trowels. to search for more people believed to be alive under the rubble from where Haaron came out who, after his rescue, was taken on a stretcher to a shelter to be evaluated by medical personnel.
Although the images of the rescue of the children have moved the world, none has done it as much as the rescue of a girl and her two brothers of 2 and 5 years of age rescued on the afternoon of this Tuesday alive.
In the images that have gone around the world, the three minors are seen covered with pillows and wrapped in blankets, in what the rescuers said appears to be an attempt to protect the older sister.
While being rescued, the rescuers They recited some verses from the Koranall to keep them hoping and believing that they would come out alive from the heavy rubble that was crushing their faces and bodies against the walls of the house.
To these miraculous and successful rescues was added that of the 31-year-old soccer player Christian Atsu who was rescued alive from the rubble. The player had signed with Hataysports last September, and the headquarters of his new team is near the epicenter of the earthquake that occurred on Monday.
“I have good news. I have just been informed by the president of the Ghanaian association that Christian Atsu has been found in Hatay,” Ambassador Francisca Ashietey-Odunton told the Ghanaian station Asaase Radio.
Like Atsu, two 18-month-old twins were brought out alive 40 hours after the building they lived in in Gazantiep collapsed like a sandcastle crumbles.
voice messages arrive
The night, the snow, the cold and the fatigue are no longer the only worries of the rescuers in Turkey and Syria to find people alive under fallen buildings. What now worries the relief forces the most is that messages from the victims asking to be rescued have begun to arrive from the bowels of the earth; some even give instructions for them to start their search.
“People send me voicemails from under the rubble. They have sent videos to other journalists where they tell them where they are,” Turkish journalist Ibrahim Haskologlu told the BBC.
In addition, the rescuers say, some of the victims have been sitting in front of the rubble for hours because they assert that they hear the screams of the buried people, but it is difficult for them to attend to so many rescue fronts.
“We are devastated. My God. They are screaming. They are saying ‘save us’, but we cannot save them… There is no one”, said a man in the ruins of Hatay.
Another inhabitant of this province emphasized that the relief forces they have not reached that territory; even Serkan Topal, a member of the Samandag district government, told the BBC that he has traveled “through much of the province and I have not come across an intact building. Most of the official bodies are out of order and there is an urgent need for external help”.
Staring into space, Mesut Hancer grasps the hand of his dead daughter, 15-year-old Irmak, lying limp between two concrete slabs. In the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, grief and anger are mixed at the lack of help for the victims of the earthquake that left thousands dead.
Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the devastating earthquake (7.8) that shook southern and southeastern Turkey on Monday, is just ruin and desolation.
But by Tuesday neither help nor supplies had yet arrived. to this city of more than a million inhabitants, located in the south of the Cappadocia region. Here, just as in the city of Antioch, at the gates of Syria, frustration and resentment towards the absent state accumulate. Ali Sagiroglu has been waiting for reinforcements for two days, still hoping to see his brother and his nephew trapped in the rubble.
As the hours pass, the hope of finding more survivors dwindles, but rescuers keep searching, tearing up the stones with their hands to search for every last vestige of life hidden among the rubble.
7.826
It is the number of fatalities registered in Turkey and Syria after the earthquake.
