Freed by Istanbul fire brigade: 13-year-old survives ten days under rubble

After the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the hope of finding survivors is dwindling.

Freed by Istanbul fire brigade: 13-year-old survives ten days under rubble

After the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the hope of finding survivors is dwindling. For 13-year-old Mustafa from Antakya, however, help came in time: after almost ten days, he was freed from the rubble, according to the Istanbul fire brigade.

Almost ten days after the severe earthquake, a boy was rescued from the rubble, according to the fire department. The 13-year-old Mustafa was freed after 228 hours in the city of Antakya, the Istanbul emergency services said on Wednesday evening. Video shows firefighters and miners trying to approach the youth, who is then carried out of the rubble on a stretcher. The information could not be independently verified.

More than 35,000 people have been reported dead in Turkey alone. Many people still miss people in the rubble. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised on Monday that the rescue work would not be stopped until all those buried underneath had been recovered.

Meanwhile, many are sharing wanted ads on social media in the hope of finding their loved ones in hospitals. More than 13,000 people injured in the quake are still being treated in hospitals, but some are unidentifiable, a hospital worker in Adana said. In many places, the infrastructure for health care was severely damaged.

A week and a half after the earthquake catastrophe, many more tremors shook the Turkish-Syrian border region. According to the Turkish civil protection on Wednesday, more than 3,800 aftershocks have already been registered - 38 with a magnitude of more than 5. "There are very intense aftershocks. We are dealing with an unusual situation," said the head of the risk reduction department of the civil protection agency Afad , Orhan Tatar.