The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria rose to more than 44,000 on Saturday, February 18, Turkish authorities have announced.
The head of Turkey’s disaster agency, Yunus Sezer, said rescue operations would be “largely completed” by Sunday night as the number of dead bodies have reduced to a handful as at press time.
State news agency Anadolu initially reported on Saturday that three people were found alive nearly two weeks after the the 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit on February 6. But the agency later reported that one of them, a 12-year-old, had died.
Photos showed rescuers placing a man
and a woman on stretchers after the married couple and a child spent 296
hours under the rubble in the southeastern Turkish city of Antakya.
The agency later reported three of their children had died including the 12-year-old.
Teams
on Friday pulled four people alive from the rubble, including a
45-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy, in the surrounding Hatay
province.
Rescues that were initially met with applause and relief, have in recent days been greeted more soberly.
Officials
and medics said that 40,642 people had died in Turkey and 3,688 in
Syria from the quake, bringing the confirmed total to 44,330. The toll
from Syria has remained unchanged for days.
The quake in one
of the world’s most active seismic zones hit populated areas as many
slept, in homes that had not been built to resist such powerful tremors.
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