ISTANBUL: A couple and their son were pulled alive from under a collapsed apartment building more than 12 days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck parts of Turkey and Syria, but the child later died in a hospital. Done, Turkish state media reported on Saturday. A foreign search team from Kyrgyzstan rescued Samir Mohammad Akar, 49, his wife, Ragda, 40, and their 12-year-old son during excavations from the rubble of an apartment building in the southern Turkish city of Antakya, state-run Anadolu news agency said. They were removed at about 11:30 local time (8:30 GMT), or 296 hours after the February 6 earthquake, and quickly transferred to an ambulance. TV footage showed doctors placing an IV drip in his arm as he lay on a stretcher.
A Kyrgyz rescuer said the team also found the bodies of two dead children. Anadolu later reported that they were also the children of Samir Muhammad and Ragda Akar.
New #Miracle In #turkey, #Rescued 12 days later #Earthquake, #rescue The teams found a couple and their son alive after spending 296 hours (over 12 days). #अंतक्य, #turkeyearthquake2023 #turkey pic.twitter.com/Pc9G3gCXkC— Reliable Self (@RahulKhan41) February 18, 2023
During a visit to Antakya, capital of Hatay province, Turkey’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said the father was conscious and was being treated at Mustafa Kemal University Hospital. Anadolu published photos of Mehmet Oz, a US TV personality and former US Senate candidate, meeting a recovering man.
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Reporting their conversation, Anadolu said that Samir Mohammad Akar explained how he survived the ordeal by drinking his own urine. She also told Dr. Oz that her children responded to her voice for the first two or three days, but after that they heard nothing.
Hatay Province, where Antakya is located, was one of the worst-hit areas by the earthquake, which killed at least 40,642 people in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria. Search and rescue operations continued in Turkey, although the head of the country’s disaster response agency said they would end on Sunday.