10-Day-Old Baby & Mother Rescued From Earthquake Rubble After They Were Stuck in the Debris for 90 Hours

Amid the devastating earthquake in Turkey, rescuers whispered their prayers as they carefully reached into the rubble to save a 10-day-old newborn and his mother. They had managed to survive for almost four days in the ruined building, as per Reuters.

The newborn, Yagiz Ulas, had his eyes wide open when he was wrapped in a thermal blanket before being taken to a field medical center in Samandag, Hatay province on January 10. Emergency workers also carried his mother on a stretcher. She appeared dazed and pale but conscious after a nearly 90-hour ordeal, as per a video from Turkey's disaster agency.

In these testing times, the rescue of small children has kept the weary rescuers motivated. The earthquake in Turkey and neighboring Syria has killed over 22,000 people, per CNN. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described it as the "disaster of the century", per the New York Times. 

At least nine children were rescued on the same day, as per the videos released by disaster services.

The rescuers include specialist teams from various countries who have toiled through the night into the ruins of thousands of wrecked buildings. As the temperature decreased, they did not lose hope and regularly called for silence to listen for any sound of life from the concrete mounds, as per Reuters.

In Syria, rescuers saved a girl, Aya, who was likely born shortly after the earthquake. She was found reportedly still attached by an umbilical cord to her mother, who died in the earthquake, reported The Guardian.

Aya, whose name means "a sign from God" in Arabic, The Guardian reported, is being treated at a hospital until she's healthy enough to be released to her great-uncle as her parents did not survive the earthquake. 

Her mother, Abu Hadiya probably gave birth to her and then died a few hours before they were discovered, said Dr. Hani Maarouf at Cihan hospital in Afrin. “We named her Aya, so we could stop calling her a newborn baby,” said Maarouf. Her condition is improving by the day and there was no damage to her spine, as initially feared, he said. 

Further in Turkey, the fear-stricken face of another boy looked out from a shattered building on February 10 in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir, where the 7.8 magnitude earthquake and aftershocks turned apartment blocks into mounds of rubble and piles of shattered pieces, per Reuters. 

As the rescuers opened a wider hole, they placed an oxygen mask on the boy's face and carried him to safety along with his mother. 

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has informed that a magnitude 7.8 earthquake is one of the strongest to hit the region in more than 100 years. The quake struck southern Turkey near the northern border of Syria on February 6, followed 11 minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. 

According to UNICEF, the initial earthquake struck around 4:00 a.m. local time "when many children and families were asleep at home."

However, the instances of rescuers saving as many people as possible with care and love have been the silver lining in these dark times.

This is a developing story, and we’ll update you as we learn more. Information about the earthquake is swiftly changing, and WomenWorking is committed to providing the most recent and verified updates in our articles and reportage. However, considering the frequency of developments, some of the information/data in this article may have changed since the time of publication.

References:

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/newborn-toddlers-survive-days-rubble-bringing-joy-amid-earthquake-tragedy-2023-02-10/

https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/turkey-syria-earthquake-updates-2-10-23-intl/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/02/09/world/turkey-syria-earthquake

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/10/baby-aya-syria-earthquake-newborn-name

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000jllz/executive

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/thousands-children-risk-after-devastating-earthquakes-hit-south-east-t%C3%BCrkiye-and-syria

Cover Image Source: Youtube | Reuters