JINDERIS, Syria (AP) — Over 11,000 people are confirmed dead following a massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday.
Residents digging through rubble on Tuesday in a northwest Syrian town discovered rescued a toddler, and a crying infant whose mother appears to have given birth to her while buried underneath the rubble from this week’s devastating earthquake, relatives and a doctor said Tuesday.
The newborn girl’s umbilical cord was still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was dead, they said. The baby was the only member of her family to survive from the building collapse Monday in the small town of Jinderis, next to the Turkish border, Ramadan Sleiman, a relative, told The Associated Press.
Monday’s pre-dawn 7.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by multiple aftershocks, caused widespread destruction across southern Turkey and northern Syria. Thousands have been killed, with the toll mounting as more bodies are discovered. But dramatic rescues have also occurred.
Stretched rescue teams are toiling through the night in Turkey and Syria, searching for signs of life in the rubble of thousands of buildings toppled by a catastrophic earthquake. The death toll rose Wednesday to more than 11,000, making it the deadliest quake worldwide in more than a decade
Hope for finding survivors is fading. Amid calls for the Turkish government to send more help to the disaster zone, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan toured a “tent city” in Kahramanmaras on Wednesday.
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(Copyright 2023 WBAP/KLIF 24/7 News. This report contains material from The Associated Press.)
