122 hours, that’s five days and two hours without help and food in the icy cold. It’s hard to imagine, but even after such a long time, some of the victims are still alive. Every few hours there are reports of special rescues. For example, the Dutch aid workers managed to free a boy after 106 hours on Friday. But the more time passes, the less of that hopeful news comes out of the disaster area.
The rescue of 70-year-old Menekse Tabak is proof that it is still not too late. That woman ended up under the collapsed remains of her apartment on Azerbaijan Boulevard in Kahramanmaras early Monday morning and has been patiently waiting for help ever since. Rescuers had known for some time that she was there, and that she was still alive. But it took a lot of work to get her out of the rubble, the Turkish news agency Anadolu knows.
The excitement was therefore great when the rescuers managed to free Menekse on Friday night. The woman was immediately wrapped in a blanket and taken to the hospital on a stretcher. ‘Allahu akbar’, it sounded grateful. ‘God is big.’
At about the same time, 350 kilometers inland in Diyarbakir, 55-year-old Masallah Cicek was rescued. For the time being, they are the last ones lucky enough to get out of the rubble alive. According to Turkey’s vice president, 79 more people have been rescued in the past 24 hours.
It is now light and day six after the earthquakes has arrived. “The chance that we will find someone is extremely small,” says Jop Heinen of the USAR team from the Netherlands. Nevertheless, the group gets back to work, hoping to find another miracle. as they were able to save an 8-year-old boy on Friday. “We are going to make another last attempt. Soon two rescue groups will start working in the area,” he says. to find someone else to be able to take action and to mean something to that badly affected population.”