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A three-year-old girl was rescued from the rubble 91 hours after a strong earthquake struck western Turkey.
The rescuers, exhausted but determined on their fourth day on the 24-hour job, had been zeroing out four buildings, supported by drones surveying the scene.
They erupted in cheers, applause and shouts of “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greater”, the moment they realized that they had rescued a girl named Ayda Gezgin.
“We have witnessed a miracle at the 91st hour,” Izmir Mayor Tunc Soyer tweeted.
“The name of the miracle is Ayda,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted moments later.
“With your smiling eyes, you have inspired new hope for us. Thank God. Get well soon my lovely little one,” wrote the Turkish leader.
In the initial confusion, Turkish officials said the girl was four years old, before realizing she was only three.
She called her mother when she was taken to an ambulance waiting for her in a gold foil blanket, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
Anxious family members and survivors, many of them spending the cold night in tents a safe distance from the ruins, erupted into enthusiastic applause, some hugging and others crying.
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Rescuers said they realized someone was still alive at the site last night, before working painstakingly to get to it.
“It was a childish, feminine voice,” said one rescuer. “My friend Ahmet saw the hand, and when we opened (the space) a little more, Ayda’s face.”
He said the girl was discovered in the kitchen, in a small space created by the oven and other appliances.
“From the moment we heard its sound, it didn’t matter how tired we were. It gave us energy again,” he told AFP. “We were so happy.”
However, the death toll from the earthquake rose to 100 this morning, the country’s disaster authority said.
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake also injured 994 people, of which 147 are still in hospital.
Rescue teams in Izmir province continue to search five buildings tirelessly for an unknown number of missing persons.
The worst hit Turkish city was Bayrakli in Izmir, where there was a mixture of celebration and sadness yesterday after a three-year-old girl named Elif Perincek and a 14-year-old girl named Idil Sirin were rescued from the rubble.
But both lost a brother each to the disaster, which occurred on Friday afternoon in the Aegean Sea.
Two teenagers who were coming home from school also died in Greece.
Turkey has reported more than 1,460 aftershocks after the earthquake, including 44 that exceeded four in magnitude.
After dozens of buildings were damaged and the risk of repeated tremors, thousands of residents were forced to spend a fourth night in tents in Izmir.
The earthquake is the deadliest in Turkey this year after another disaster struck the eastern provinces of Elazig and Malatya in January, killing more than 40 people.
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