Rescue workers and medics pull out a person from a collapsed building in Antakya on February 15
(Picture: AP)A mother and her two children were miraculously pulled alive from the rubble 228 hours after the first Turkey earthquake struck.
The woman named as Ela and her children Meysam and Ali were rescued from a collapsed apartment block in Antakya on Wednesday, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported, nine days after the devastating quakes last Monday that have killed more than 41,000.
Earlier rescuers could be seen applauding and embracing each other as an ambulance carried away a 74-year-old woman pulled from the rubble in Kahramanmaras, as rescues defying the odds continued to emerge. A 46-year-old woman was also rescued in the same city on Wednesday.
The rescues came as aid efforts shifted to supporting survivors, with much of the region’s sanitation infrastructure damaged or rendered inoperable by the earthquakes. Health authorities face a daunting task in trying to ensure that people now remain disease-free.
The World Health Organization said it was particularly concerned by the welfare of people in northwestern Syria, a rebel-held region with little access to aid.
It asked Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to open more border crossing points with Turkey to allow aid to get through.
Turkey on Thursday said its death toll had risen above 36,100.
