Five people were rescued alive this Wednesday after nine days buried in rubble, following earthquakes in Turkey that caused at least 40,000 deaths in the country and Syria.
The last rescue took place in Antioquia, one of the cities most destroyed by the earthquakes, where rescue teams rescued a woman and two children alive from the rubble, trapped for 228 hours.
An hour earlier, the teams had rescued a 74-year-old woman, Cemile Kekeç, who lives in the city of Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter of the earthquake. In the same city, a 42-year-old woman, Melike Imamoglu, was found alive in a building that had collapsed, after search teams heard her cries for help.
The five rescues, almost miraculous for occurring after several days, are added to the rescue of another woman, Fatma Güngör, 77, rescued in the city of Adiyaman.
To the low temperatures, close to zero degrees, or even lower, in the earthquake-affected region, may in certain circumstances facilitate the survival of prisonersas explained by specialists from the firefighters’ team in Madrid, Spain, who participated in the rescues for several days, to the Efe agency.
The rubble protects against the extreme cold and, as it is not hot, the body does not sweat and dehydrate like in the summer, when the chances of survival would be only two or three days, they needed.
More than 200 hours after the initial shock, people still being found alive
REUTERS/DILARA SENKAYA
Thousands of pregnant women with childbirth at risk
In Syria, about 40,000 Syrian pregnant women are at risk of having their children without sanitary conditions in the coming months, the United Nations (UN) warned this Wednesday.
The regional director of the UN Population Fund, Laila Baker, visited Aleppo, one of the areas of Syria most affected by the earthquakes of the past 6th, and found that a large part of the health facilities are damaged, do not have the basic equipment necessary for childbirth or medication.
The UN calls for a collection of at least 24 million dollars in donations. The UN Population Fund, responsible for sexual and reproductive health, has been providing aid both in areas that are controlled by the Syrian government and in regions that are under the control of groups opposing the regime.