Rescuers race to save lives as toll tops 22,000

Bitter cold hampers efforts but miracles still happen

BAB AL-HAWA BORDER CROSSING, Syria — Rescuers were scouring debris on Friday nearly 100 hours after a massive earthquake hit Turkiye and Syria, killing at least 22,000 people in one of the region's worst disasters in a century.

Chances of finding survivors have dimmed since the passing of the three-day mark that experts consider a critical period to save lives.

Bitter cold hampered search efforts in both countries, but 104 hours after the disaster struck, 40-year-old Zeynep Kahraman was found alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkiye where she had been trapped since the temblor struck on Monday.

German emergency workers carefully lifted the woman on a stretcher past shattered blocks of concrete and twisted metal in the town of Kirikhan into an ambulance.

"Now I believe in miracles," said Steven Bayer, the leader of the International Search and Rescue team.

Before dawn in Gaziantep, near the epicenter of the quake in Turkiye, rescuers pulled Adnan Muhammed Korkut from the basement where he had been trapped since Monday. The 17-year-old beamed a smile at the crowd of friends and relatives who chanted "Adnan", "Adnan", clapping and crying tears of joy as he was carried out and put onto a stretcher.

"Thank God you arrived," he said, embracing his mother and others who leaned down to kiss and hug him as he was being loaded into an ambulance. "Thank you everyone."

Trapped for 94 hours, but not crushed, the teenager said he had been forced to drink his own urine to slake his thirst.

"I was able to survive that way," he said.

Unstable structures

The magnitude-7.8 quake struck as people slept, in a region where many had already suffered loss and displacement due to Syria's civil war.

Even though experts say trapped people could survive for a week or more, the chances of finding survivors in the freezing temperatures are dimming. As emergency crews and panicked relatives dug through the rubble — and occasionally found people alive — the focus began to shift to demolishing dangerously unstable structures.

Temperatures in the Turkish city of Gaziantep plunged to — 3 C early on Friday.

Despite the cold, thousands of families had to spend the night in cars and makeshift tents — too scared or banned from returning to their homes.

Parents walked the streets of the city carrying their children in blankets because it was warmer than sitting in a tent.

Gyms, mosques, schools and some stores have opened at night. But beds are scarce and thousands spend the nights in cars with engines running to provide heat.

"I fear for anyone who is trapped under the rubble in this," said Melek Halici, who wrapped her 2-year-old daughter in a blanket as they watched rescuers working into the night.

Monday's quake was the largest Turkiye has seen since 1939, when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan Province. Experts fear the number will continue to rise sharply.

In addition to a staggering human toll, the quake's economic cost appears likely to exceed $2 billion and could reach $4 billion or more, Fitch Ratings said.

Agencies—Xinhua