Rescue phase ‘comes to a close’ in Turkey-Syria quake disaster
Al JazeeraStories of miraculous rescues flooded the airwaves in recent days, but tens of thousands of dead have also been found with the toll expected to sharply rise. Rescuers saved a 13-year-old boy from under a collapsed building a week after Turkey’s deadliest modern-day earthquake killed tens of thousands of people as the chances of finding other survivors dwindled. In the shattered Syrian city of Aleppo, United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said the rescue phase was “coming to a close”. In one dramatic rescue attempt in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, rescuers said they had contact with a grandmother, mother and baby trapped in a room in the remains of a three-storey building. “No, no.” The Turkish toll now exceeds the 31,643 killed in a quake in 1939, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency said, making it the worst quake in the country’s modern history.