Turkish mother, 33, breaks down in tears as British rescuers pull her and her ... trends now
British volunteer rescuers have completed the miraculous extraction of a mother and her young boy from the rubble of their home in Turkey after they spent a whopping 68 hours unable to move.
Serap Topal, 33, and her five-year-old son, Mehmet Hamza Topal, were trapped when their home in Kahramanmaras collapsed around them amid a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake earlier this week.
Kahramanmaras was just a few miles from the epicentre of the quake which demolished huge swathes of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria and killed more than 17,000, with the death toll expected to rise sharply.
Serap and Mehmet spent the best part of three days stuck in the pitch black, covered in dust and debris, with Serap sustaining crush injuries.
But they were saved from almost certain death by workers from SARAID, a group of British volunteers, and German outfit At Fire - both UN-class urban search and rescue teams.
Serap Topal bursts into tears as she is hauled from the rubble by British, German and Turkish rescuers in Kahramanmaras early this morning
A rescue worker looks to the heavens in elation and delight after he rescued Mehmet Hamza Topal from the rubble of his collapsed home
Serap was carefully strapped to a spinal cord stabilising stretcher having suffered injuries in the catastrophe
British rescuers in orange hold Serap steady as they gently pull her from the gap in the debris
Tear-jerking footage of the moment they were rescued showed Serap bursting into tears as fatigue and relief overwhelmed her, while a volunteer was seen looking to the heavens in utter elation as he carried a seemingly unhurt Mehmet free of the debris.
Heart-wrenching images of Serap unable to hold back floods of tears as her rescuers gently lifted her from the wreckage and strapped her to a stretcher underscore the anguish felt by tens of thousands of Turks and Syrians.
Meanwhile, the sheer joy emblazoned across the face of the rescuer who clutched the five-year-old boy perfectly encapsulated the hope held by families, friends and aid workers that they will recover more survivors from the darkness.
But such hopes were fading Thursday as the death toll ticked beyond 17,000, with those trapped under the slabs of concrete and twisted metal now having spent more than 72 hours without food, water or in some cases oxygen.
Most experts consider the three-day mark to be the limit for saving lives and the bitter winter weather, combined with the sheer scale of the damage, has severely hampered rescue efforts.
A 33 year-old mother, Serap Topal and her 5 year-old son, Mehmet Hamza Topal are rescued by the German and British rescue teams from under the rubble after 68 hours of the 7.7 magnitude Kahramanmaras earthquake in Turkiye on February 09, 2023
This is the tiny hole in the rubble from which rescuers were able to extract Serap and her son
Rescuers search for survivors in the town of Harim in rebel-held northwest Syria
The 7.8-magnitude quake struck as people slept early Monday in a region where many people had already suffered loss and displacement due to Syria's civil war.
An official at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing told AFP that an aid convoy reached rebel-held
