three generations stuck
In the city of Kahramanmaras, rescuers said they had contact with a grandmother, mother and child trapped in a room in the remains of a three-story building. Rescue workers were digging a second tunnel to reach them, after the first route was blocked, and a human chain was formed to carry out the debris in buckets.
“I have a very strong feeling that we are going to get them,” said Bercu Baldouf, head of Turkey’s voluntary healthcare team. “It is already a miracle. After seven days, they are without water, food and in good condition.”
On the same street, emergency workers found a body covered in a black bag. “It’s your brother,” said a sad woman, with another moan, “No, no.”
The Turkish toll now exceeds the 31,643 killed in the earthquake in 1939, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said, making it the worst earthquake in Turkey’s modern history.
The total death toll in Syria, a country ravaged by more than a decade of civil war, has reached 5,714, including those killed in both rebel enclaves and government-controlled areas.
It is the sixth deadliest natural disaster of this century after the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan that killed at least 73,000 people.
A business group said Turkey is facing a bill of $84 billion. Turkish Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum said that about 42,000 buildings have either collapsed, are in urgent need of demolition, or have been seriously damaged in ten cities.