Rescue workers on Thursday pulled a 12-year-old boy out alive from the under the rubble in Turkey’s earthquake zone, according to Turkish news agency Anadolu, which also reports that the death toll from the earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria on 6 February has now topped 41,000.
The boy had been trapped under a collapsed building for 260 hours, nearly 11 days, in Turkey's southernmost province of Hatay, which borders on Syria.
In Kahramanmaras, another province in the earthquake zone, a 42-year-old woman was pulled from under the rubble 257 hours after the first earthquake, Anadolu news agency had announced hours earlier. She, too, was still alive and was taken to hospital.
The NTV television channel later reported that Neslihan Kilic, a woman in her 20s, had been rescued after 258 hours in Kahramanmaras. CNN Turk noted that more than 250 people had died in the skyscraper complex from which she was pulled alive.
Turkey has suspended rescue operations in some areas and the Syrian government has done the same in areas under its control. The chances of finding survivors are now slim.
On Monday 6 February, Turkey and Syria were hit by two massive earthquakes, followed by thousands of aftershocks. So far, more than 41,000 people have died: 38,044 in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria. An unknown number of people are missing.
