Girl, 17, is found alive under rubble TEN DAYS after earthquake struck in Turkey
Miracle in the 248th hour: Girl, 17, is found alive under rubble TEN DAYS after earthquake struck in Turkey as disaster death toll climbs to 42,000 and Brit rescuers describe ‘zombie apocalypse’ devastation
- Aleyna Olmez miraculously survived 248 hours of being entombed by debris
- She was rescued this morning in Kahramanmaras, close to epicentre of quake
- More than 42,000 people have now died as a result of the harrowing disaster
A 17-year-old girl has been pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in southern Turkey an eye-watering 248 hours after a massive earthquake that killed more than 42,000 in Turkey and Syria.
The scarcely believable rescue of Aleyna Olmez transpired in the southern province of Kahramanmaras, which was close to the epicentre of the 7.8 magnitude quake that erupted last Monday and demolished hundreds of square miles of territory.
Experts say that the overwhelming majority of survivors are rescued within 72 hours of the disaster. After three days, the survival rate drops drastically as those buried under mountains of debris succumb to dehydration, asphyxiation or injuries sustained amid the tremor.
But the teenager miraculously endured ten whole days of being entombed under tonnes of concrete and twisted metal.
Her incredible rescue was conducted in an area described by a British aid volunteer as looking like a ‘zombie apocalypse’, where a potent stench of death hangs in the air.
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17 year-old girl Aleyna Olmez rescued from the rubbles of collapsed Atabey Apartment in Kayabasi neighbourgood 248 hours after a 7.8 magnitude quake demolishe much of southern Turkey and northern Syria
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The teenager miraculously endured ten whole days of being entombed under tonnes of concrete and twisted metal
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An aerial view shows a tractor working on removing debris from a collapsed building in the Syrian rebel-held town of Jinderis on February 15, 2023
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Rescue workers and medics pull out a person from a collapsed building in Antakya, Turkey, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023
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Rescue workers and medics pull out a person from a collapsed building in Antakya, Turkey, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023
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A volunteer assists three-year-old Syrian boy Arslan, who lost all his immediate family and was the sole survivor from his building following the February 6 earthquake that hit Turkey and northern Syria, at a hospital in Sarmada, in Syria’s northern Idlib province, on February 13, 2023
Aid worker Basheer Khan spent five days in Turkey from Wednesday with a group of volunteers from different countries, who are part of the assessment team at international NGO Humanity First.
The team included logisticians, doctors and local guides and translators, and comprised of three members from Turkey, two from Germany and two from the UK.
‘Our key task was to go over there, work out what the lie of the land was, where the areas of greatest need were and also talk to all the authorities to work out what help we could provide’, the 39-year-old from London said.
‘And then we can make the arrangement and plans for getting our main teams out there.’
He said that he was staying in Adana while there, which was right on the edge of the earthquake zone.
‘I was pretty much okay’, he said.
‘But when you start getting closer to cities near the earthquake epicentre, it was like coming out of a computer game, like a zombie apocalypse.
‘There were huge buildings – half had collapsed, half had huge cracks.’
He added that in Antakya, in the Hatay province, ‘every other house was either rubble or had major damage to it’.
He said: ‘You could smell the stench of death around you, but there was no sense of panic or chaos in any of the places we visited.
‘It seemed as though the authorities had got things under control.’
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A man stands amid rubble of a collapsed buidling while Greek and Turkish rescuers try to exhume the bodies of six of his relatives, including four children in Antakya, south of Hatay, on February 15, 2023
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Workers clean the rubble of a collapsed building in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Adiyaman, Turkey February 16, 2023
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An excavator clears debris amidst collapsed buildings in Hatay on February 15, 2023, nine days after a 7,8-magnitude earthquake struck parts of Turkey and Syria
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Undated handout photo issued by Humanity First of a Humanity First volunteer helping people in the Hayat region of Turkey after the devastating earthquake left hundreds of thousands displaced
Khan added that every public servant the team met in Turkey was ‘courteous, helpful and considerate, even though they experienced the worst catastrophe that has ever hit their country’.
He said: ‘When our German team arrived, they arrived with a lot of equipment – around 15 trolleys worth of equipment and we found it difficult to find cars or vans to hire.
‘We spoke to someone from AFAD (Turkey’s disaster management agency) and a couple of hours later, they rocked up with a big truck.
‘We’re there to help, but they’re quite self-sufficient as well.’
He also spoke about an occasion when he saw a table with toys for children fleeing the earthquake zone at Antalya airport on Sunday, which showed how much the Turks had ‘thought of the small things’.
He said that a lot of hospitals have been damaged from the earthquake.
He added: ‘On the first day I went there, I saw a brand new hospital which was almost nearing completion which is now completely unusable, except for a couple of rooms.
‘You had people treated in one room and next door they had the morgue and the stench of death.’
He added that because many doctors had died from the incident and due to the consequences of it, Humanity First helped to provide the immediate primary and emergency care that would have been provided by the hospital that are not there in the same capacity anymore.
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An aerial view shows a tractor working on removing debris from a collapsed building in the Syrian rebel-held town of Jindayris on February 15, 2023, following the February 6 earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria
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Syrians gather in a street following the February 6 earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, in rebel-held town of Jinderis on February 14, 2023
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People carry a bodybag as local residents wait for their relatives to be pulled out from the rubble of collapsed buildings in Hatay, on February 14, 2023
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A woman paints a girl’s face during an activity to entertain and support mental health of children affected by the deadly earthquake in Osmaniye, Turkey February 16, 2023
‘The Turkish Government may say stay for a few weeks, or a few months or longer, we don’t know, but at the moment we are here to help as much as possible’, he said.
‘At the moment, we’ve got doctors out there from Germany and the USA, with a team from the UK flying over on Friday – we’re sending out a lot of specialists, particularly doctors.’
He added that one of the biggest concerns facing people in Turkey is the psychological impact of the earthquake on them.
‘A lot of people are now living outside and the psychological impact of that cannot be underestimated,’ he said.
‘Even though they may have escaped completely unscathed, they may have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from being inside a building, even I felt a little bit shaken seeing the state of the buildings and I have not experienced the earthquake myself.
‘There are going to be longer term mental health issues and possibly public health issues around waterborne diseases and it is really cold at the moment, so those are the things we are most concerned about.’
Humanity First was also involved with helping to transport and relocate some Syrian refugees in the initial days of the earthquakes.
The NGO has an appeal running, which aims to continue providing warm clothing and hygiene equipment to those in Turkey and Syria, as well as setting up medical camps in Turkey.