Some heart-wrenching videos are emerging out of Turkey as rescue teams scrambling to find survivors trapped under debris after four massive earthquakes ravaged the middle eastern country on Monday. The string of natural disasters left over 1,500 people dead but the death toll could rise as search and rescue teams recover bodies trapped under the buildings that have been turned into rubble after the earthquakes.
Videos from Turkey showed rescue workers searching for survivors through tangles of metal and concrete as the backdrop showed more debris piling up after rows of buildings crumbled to dust. Amid the videos, one specific one has gone viral, which was first posted by Anadolu Agency.
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It showed a team pulling out a young girl, who was trapped under a heap of rubble in Turkey’s southeastern Sanliurfa province. The girl looks like she was in shock and crying as the team of rescuers carried the girl, covered in dust, to seek medical treatment. Watch the video below:
A little girl who was pulled out from under the concrete in the earthquake. Urfa Turkey
pic.twitter.com/XZx4RZ2upO— Selin Marta (@martakarta3) February 6, 2023
Within a matter of hours, Turkey has been subjected to 4 back-to-back earthquakes starting with a 7.8 magnitude one, killing hundreds of people as they slept and leveling buildings. Neighboring Syria was also rocked by the tremors and they were felt as far away as the island of Cyprus, Egypt, and Iraq.
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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called the first earthquake a historic disaster for which the death toll is likely to rise. He said 2,818 buildings collapsed after the first tremor, describing it as the country’s “largest disaster” since 1939 when a major quake struck the eastern province of Erzincan. The focal point of the quake was in the province of Kahramanmaras and shook southern Turkey and northern Syria overnight. It was followed by a second powerful tremor with a 7.6 magnitude. There was a third one measuring 7.1-magnitude and a fourth one which was 7.5, which took place just an hour back.