A week after the Turkey-Syria earthquake, rescue operations continue. LIVE
2Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the number of victims of the earthquake in the country reached 21,043, and 80,097 people were injured.
According to Erdogan, the February 6 earthquake surpassed the 1999 earthquake’s tremors in the Sea of Marmara zone three times in its scale and destruction.
Rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey on Monday and another team was digging a tunnel to reach what was believed to be a trapped grandmother, mother and 30-day-old baby, broadcaster CNN Turk reported.
A week after a major earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, the toll of dead rose to nearly 34,000 and looked set to keep increasing as hopes for finding any more survivors faded.
But CNN Turk reported that Sibel Kaya, 40, was rescued in southern Gaziantep province, some 170 hours after the first of two major quakes struck the region.
Rescue workers in Kahramanmaras had also made contact with three survivors, believed to be a mother, daughter and baby, in the ruins of a building, the broadcaster reported.
The toll in both countries rose to nearly 34,000 on Monday.
The deadliest quake in Turkey since 1939 has killed 29,605 people there. More than 4,300 people were reported dead and 7,600 injured in northwest Syria as of Sunday, said a U.N. agency.
In Kahramamaras, the rescuers hoping to reach the three survivors consisted of a Turkish military team, miners and Spanish firefighters who were first alerted to there being life in the rubble by a search dog, said engineer officer Halil Kaya.
A thermal scan signalled that there were people alive, about five metres within the building, and then a muffled sound was detected, Kaya told the broadcaster.
The miners have excavated around three metres through a neighbouring building that is still standing, putting up support beams as they go.
"When we said knock on the wall if you can hear us, we heard faint tapping," he said.
"Our colleagues are all here working for 24 hours without sleeping ... We will all be here until we get those people out of there."
On Sunday, rescue teams from Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus pulled a man alive from a collapsed building in Turkey, about 160 hours after the quake struck, Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations said.