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Desperate search for survivors continues after huge quake in Turkey

A 70-year-old man has been pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Izmir, after being buried for 33 hours following a powerful earthquake which struck Turkey’s Aegean coast and Greek islands.

IZMIR, TURKEY - OCTOBER 31: Search and rescue works continue at rubbles of a collapsed building after a magnitude 6.6 quake shook Turkey's Aegean Sea coast, in Izmir, Turkey on October 31, 2020.

Search and rescue works continue in the rubble of a collapsed building in Izmir. Photo: AFP

Turkish authorities reported more deaths today, bringing the toll to 62, all in Izmir, while two teenagers died on the Greek island of Samos.

The man, identified as Ahmet Citim, was rescued from one of 20 residential buildings destroyed in Izmir’s Bayrakli district, a former shantytown where older buildings vulnerable to earthquakes were being replaced by newer construction projects. Television images showed that the collapsed buildings were older ones.

IZMIR, TURKEY - OCTOBER 31: Search and rescue works continue at debris of a building following a magnitude 6.6 quake shook Turkey's Aegean Sea coast, in Izmir, Turkey on October 31, 2020.

Search and rescue work continues at a collapsed building in Izmir. Photo: AFP

Rescue and emergency teams have been working through the wrecked buildings for two days and President Tayyip Erdogan said his government was “determined to heal the wounds of our brothers and sisters in Izmir before the cold and rains begin”.

More than 3000 tents and 13,000 beds have been supplied to provide temporary shelter, according to Turkey’s disasters and emergency agency AFAD, which said 940 people had been injured in the earthquake on Saturday (NZ time).

A man pets one of his dogs as he is sheltered in a tent in Izmir, on November 1, 2020 after a powerful earthquake struck Turkey's western coast and parts of Greece. -

A man pets his dog in one of the tents being used as temporary shelter. Photo: AFP

More than 700 victims have so far been discharged from hospitals, while eight remain in intensive care, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said.

Turkey is crossed by fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. In 1999, two powerful quakes killed 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey.

The latest earthquake, which the Istanbul-based Kandilli Institute said had a magnitude of 6.9, was centred in the Aegean Sea, northeast of Samos.

IZMIR, TURKEY - OCTOBER 31: Search and rescue works continue at debris of Doganlar Apartment located in Bayrakli district after a magnitude 6.6 quake shook Turkey's Aegean Sea coast, in Izmir, Turkey on October 31, 2020.

Photo: AFP

‘I will play the violin for you’

Sixteen-year-old Inci Okan was trapped under the rubble of the same eight-storey building as the elderly man before being rescued 17 hours after the strong quake, along with her dog Fistik (Pistachio).

IZMIR, TURKEY - OCTOBER 31: Grandmother of Inci Okan gestures as search and rescue crews rescued 16 year-old Inci Okan from the rubbles of collapsed Riza Bey building 17 hours after a magnitude 6.6 quake shook Turkey's Aegean Sea coast, in Izmir, Turkey on October 31, 2020.

Inci Okan’s grandmother watches as the teenager is rescued. Photo: AFP

Koca and a National Medical Rescue Team (UMKE) member Edanur Dogan visited Okan at hospital.

Emergency worker Dogan had held the girl’s hand while rescue teams removed the debris above her.

“I am very happy. Thankfully my father was not at home. My father couldn’t fit there. He would hurt his head. I am tiny. I am short so I squeezed in and that’s how I was rescued. We stayed home with my dog. Both of us are well,” Okan said from her hospital bed.

Okan promised to play the violin for Dogan after being discharged from hospital.

“I will play the violin for you, I promise.”

– Reuters

Uniquely Nelson

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