Miraculous Rescue in Turkey-Syria Quake: Infant and Mom Found Alive After Four Days

Approximately 90 hours after the first of Monday’s deadly earthquakes, a newborn infant and his mother were rescued from the rubble in Turkey.

The 10-day-old boy named Yagiz was rescued from a collapsed building in the southern province of Hatay.

Local media deemed the overnight removal of the child from the cave as miraculous after capturing the event on film.

Four days after the calamity, hopes of locating a large number of additional survivors are diminishing due to the extreme cold.

Nonetheless, search and rescue operations continue in both Turkey and neighboring Syria, which was also affected by the earthquakes.

Baby Yagiz was photographed wrapped in a thermal blanket and being transported to an ambulance for treatment.

His mother was transported to safety on a stretcher. There were no new health updates immediately available for either party.

ALSO READ: Quake Devastation in Turkey-Syria: 21,000 Dead, Cold Worsens Despair

Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, whose teams were reportedly involved in the rescue, tweeted that the rescue occurred in Samandag.

The Reuters news agency also obtained footage of a man being rescued from the ruins, though it was unknown if he was connected to the other two.

After Monday morning’s initial 7.8-magnitude quake and the hundreds of aftershocks that followed, more than 21,000 people perished, the vast majority in Turkey.

There have also been fears of a secondary disaster, as a large number of people have been rendered homeless and lack shelter, water, fuel, and electricity.

President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has described it as the “catastrophe of the century.”

Opposition figures have accused Mr. Erdogan of failing to prepare for the earthquake and have questioned the expenditure of an estimated 88 billion lira ($4.6 billion; £3.8 billion) collected from an “earthquake tax.” The tax, which was imposed for the first time in the wake of a massive earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people, was intended to fund disaster prevention and the expansion of emergency services.

ALSO READ: British Nationals Missing in Turkey-Syria Earthquake

Wednesday, the leader of Turkey’s largest opposition party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, stated that the Erdogan administration “has not prepared for an earthquake in 20 years.”

Despite the devastation, remarkable escapes and heroic rescues have emerged in recent days.

Thousands of individuals have offered to adopt a girl born beneath a collapsed building in northwest Syria.

When she was rescued, Aya, whose name means “miracle” in Arabic, was still attached to her mother, who had perished along with the rest of her family.

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