Rescued from the rubble on the ninth day after the earthquake in Turkey, Muharrem Polat told how he tried to save his six-month-old son. The man told the publication Anadolu The 14th of February.
A man and his wife were rescued from the rubble in Kahramanmarash 202 hours later, or on the ninth day after the earthquake. Polat said that the family found themselves without food under the rubble of their own house. According to the victim, he found vaseline and, together with his wife, tried to eat it. At that moment, the wife lost her milk and Muharrem tried to feed his son with saliva.
“On the fifth day under the rubble, Muhammet Alparslan (son. – Ed.) could not stand it, I checked his pulse, listened to his heart and realized that he had died in the morning,” the man said.
Polat also noted that on the seventh day, he noticed melt water on the debris, under which he was with his family. Then he began to dig himself out, realizing that there was an opportunity to escape.
Earthquakes of magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 occurred on February 6 in the province of Kahramanmarash in southeastern Turkey near the border with Syria. As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan noted, it has become the strongest since 1939.
According to the latest data, more than 35 thousand people died in Turkey, more than 105 thousand were injured.
WHO, in turn, recognized the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria as the worst natural disaster in the region over the past 100 years. The World Health Organization has requested $43 million to support earthquake relief efforts.
On February 14, Erdogan announced that more than 8,000 people had been rescued alive from the rubble, and many of the 81,000 citizens of the country affected by the earthquakes had already been discharged from hospitals.