Rescuers with Azra Karaduman, a two-week-old baby girl they have saved from under debris of a collapsed building in Ercis. Picture: AP Source: AP
An Azeri rescuer inspects a hole in the debris to search for possible survivors trapped under debris of a collapsed building where seven people are believed to be buried in eastern Turkey. Picture: AP Source: AP
- Two-week-old baby pulled from debris
- Trapped in rubble for nearly 48 hours
- Chaos as Turkey quake aid arrives
RESCUERS plucked a two-week-old baby girl, her mother and grandmother from the rubble of Turkey's devastating earthquake, sparking scenes of joy that electrified search efforts.
Crowds cheered and applauded as 73-year-old Gulzade Karaduman was carried into an ambulance, hours after her tiny granddaughter Azra and then her daughter Seniha Karaduman were pulled free from the wreckage of the family home in the eastern town of Ercis.
As the death toll reached 459 and the Red Crescent warned that hundreds or even thousands of people remained buried under the debris from Sunday's quake, the triple rescue provided vital relief amid the otherwise grim task.
"It is priceless to find someone alive and all my exhaustion is over," said Oytun Gulpinar, the leader of a team of rescuers who had arrived in Ercis after a 32-hour road journey from the western city of Izmir.
"I got to hold a 16-day-old baby, which is utterly priceless," he added.
Azra was brought out by Kadir Direk, the smallest member of the Izmir team, who described how he managed to squeeze through the debris and then scoop her off the lap of her mother.
"I was the happiest person in the world when I held her," said the pint-sized 35-year-old.
"When I took her from her mother, she asked me to give her a second name."
He choose Aysenur, combining the name of the Prophet Mohammed's wife and the word "light".
Rescuers managed to save a 10-year-old boy from the wreckage of his house in the city centre of Van, more than 54 hours after the quake hit.
Serhat Gul was in the rubble of a seven-storey building, his home, from where his brother and father had been rescued earlier.
Emergency teams also pulled a pregnant woman and her two children alive from the rubble in Ercis as they laboured through the night under search lights with the help of sniffer dogs.
"Hundreds, possibly thousands of people are still trapped under the rubble," said Jessica Sallabank, a spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The IFRC said that 2256 buildings - mostly apartments - were destroyed during the quake which struck on Sunday afternoon with its epicentre in the eastern province of Van.
An update from emergency services put the death toll at 459, with more than 1350 injured.
The population of the region is mainly Kurdish and the quake came amid a major army operation targeting the separatist PKK militia in response to a series of deadly attacks.
In a sign of the simmering ethnic tensions, dozens of residents of the provincial capital Van hurled stones at journalists and police after a well-known television presenter criticised Kurds' appeals for help.
Police used pepper gas to disperse the angry crowd, but there were complaints among survivors in other areas that soldiers whose barracks had been damaged were being given priority in the aid effort.
Prisoners at a prison in the suburbs of Van set their blankets on fire, demanding that they be moved to a safer location, according to relatives.
Residents meanwhile spent a second night outside in freezing temperatures.
With night-time temperatures expected to dip to 2C and snow forecast for Wednesday, residents took shelter anywhere they could - some in cars or tents and others under just a blanket.
The football pitch in Ercis has been transformed into a sea of tents set up by the Red Crescent as the stadium serves as a makeshift field hospital.
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