Scene of hope amid ruins after family is pulled out alive... as anger at ... trends now
Turkey's president faced growing anger yesterday over the slow response to the deadly earthquakes, as he insisted it was ‘not possible’ to prepare for the disaster.
Rescuers continued to battle to find survivors but warned hopes were fading for those who have now been trapped inside collapsed buildings for more than 72 hours.
Amid the despair – and rising anger at Turkey’s authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdogan – dramatic rescues provided moments of hope, including an entire family of six pulled from the wreckage of their home. Two girls and a boy were brought to safety by rescuers from the White Helmets group in Idlib, Syria, to jubilant cheers from a large crowd which had gathered around the toppled building.
Three adults were also carried out and taken to an ambulance by the rescue group, which warned it faced a ‘race against time’ to save other survivors.
In the Turkish city of Hatay, an eight-year-old boy was rescued after he was trapped alone inside a collapsed building for 52 hours.
Two girls (one girl pictured) and a boy were brought to safety by rescuers from the White Helmets group in Idlib, Syria
The brother (pictured) of the two girls was also pulled out from the rubble by rescuers
Rescuers passed Yigit Cakmak straight into the arms of his anguished mother, who embraced the distraught boy.
Elsewhere in Turkey, rescuers fed sips of water from a bottle cap to a little boy trapped for 45 hours under a huge concrete slab.
Syrian refugee Muhammed Ahmed was pinned under the concrete and caked in dust, but managed to smile at his saviours as they used the cap from a plastic bottle to drip water into his mouth until he could be freed.
Almost 12,000 people are now known to have died in Turkey and Syria since Monday’s powerful earthquakes, with many thousands more still missing.
Families have said they can hear their relatives calling from inside collapsed buildings, but are powerless to reach them.
In the Turkish city of Malatya, Sabiha Alinak said she had
