Distraught rescuers are carefully digging through the millions of tons of rubble in the wake of the disastrous earthquake in Turkey and Syria. There is little but devastation and death. But occasionally, an unexpected gift to lift their spirits and push them to continue their grim search.
In most of these wondrous rescues, it is unfathomable how anyone could have survived. In Turkey, they reached into the ruins, then joyously passed down the line their little miracle: a 10-day-old newborn who survived four days with his mother in the collapsed building.
Alert and unaware of the dramatic circumstances surrounding his birth, Turkish baby Yagiz Ulas was wrapped in a shiny thermal blanket and carried to a field medical center in Samandag, Hatay province, on Friday. Emergency workers also carried his mother, dazed and pale but conscious, on a stretcher, video images from Turkey’s disaster agency showed.
Another newborn whose mother went into labor as the earthquake started was not so lucky. Pulled from the ruins with her umbilical cord still attached, her mother, father and 4 siblings died in the quake. She was taken to a hospital in the city of Afrin, Syria, where she is reported to be in stable condition. She is currently being cared for by hospital manager Khalid Attiah and his wife according to the BBC. She is being breastfed by Attiah’s wife, who has a four-month-old baby of her own. Now people all around the world are eager to adopt her but an uncle has been located who will be glad to raise her as his own.
At least seven children were rescued on Friday, videos released by disaster services showed, their astonishing survival inspiring search crews who also saved several trapped adults.
The rescuers, including specialist teams from dozens of countries who are pitching in with rescue and humanitarian aid, labored through the night in the ruins of thousands of wrecked buildings. In freezing temperatures, they regularly called for silence as they listened for any sound of life from the remains. The elation when they are able to save a life looks to be equal to what must be that of the survivor.
In the Turkish town of Kahramanmaras, 200 km (125 miles) north of Samandag, orange-clad workers squeezed into an air pocket beneath a fallen building to find a toddler, crying and afraid as dust fell into his eyes, before being calmed as rescuers gently and lovingly brushed his face clean, video from the Turkish defense ministry showed, and they offered the little tyke a sip of water from a bottle cap.
Further to the east of Turkey, the fearful face of another boy looked out from a pancaked building, his cries rising above the sound of the drills and grinders trying to free him on Friday morning in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir.
After opening a wider hole, workers placed an oxygen mask on his face and carried him to safety. Like baby Yagiz, he was followed by his mother, on a stretcher, 103 hours after the earthquake struck.
And across the border in Syria, rescuers from the White Helmets group used bare hands to dig through plaster and cement, the air clouded with thick dust, until reaching the bare foot of a young girl, wearing pink pajamas now grimy from days trapped, but alive and free at last.
The number of the dead in the two countries has now topped 20,000. Experts are predicting that the final toll may be as high as 180,000. Time is running short to find any other possible survivors. These may be the last of the miracle children who will be able to tell the story of their dramatic second chance at life when they grow up
