Mother, daughter and grandmother rescued in Turkey quake

Rescue workers have pulled three members of the same family from the rubble of Turkey's earthquake which has killed at least 370 people.

The first to be saved was two-week-old Azra who had spent 48 hours trapped in the debris.

Then teams found her mother, and grandmother.

Azra Karaduman was beside her mother Semiha, who was freed a few hours later, in the remains of an apartment building in the city of Ercis.

Rescuers applauded as the baby was removed from the wreckage. One cradled the naked infant, who was wrapped in a blanket and handed over to a medic.

Hours later her mother was pulled from the flattened building, where she had been pinned next to a sofa, and rushed to an ambulance. The father was also in the rubble, but it was unclear if he survived.

Rescuers in Ercis, the hardest-hit city, and the provincial capital, Van, were racing to free dozens of people trapped inside mounds of concrete, twisted steel and construction debris. Around 2,000 buildings collapsed when the 7.2 scale shock struck.

Survivors of the quake have been warned not to enter damaged buildings and thousands spent a second night outdoors in cars or tents in near-freezing conditions, afraid to return to their homes. Some 1,300 people were injured.

At least seven more people were pulled from the rubble alive, although many more bodies were discovered.

Nine-year-old Oguz Isler was trapped for eight hours beneath a relative’s home in Ercis. He was finally rescued, but waited at the foot of the same pile of debris for news of his parents and of other relatives who remain buried inside.

The boy sat calmly in front of what was left of the five-storey apartment block that used to be his aunt’s home. The city of 75,000, close to the Iranian border, lies in one of Turkey’s most earthquake-prone zones.

The boy, his sister and a cousin were trapped in the building’s third-floor stairway as they tried to escape when the quake hit. A steel door fell over him.

“I fell on the ground face down. When I tried to move my head, it hit the door,” he said. “I tried to get out and was able to open a gap with my fists in the wall but could not move my body further. The wall crumbled quickly when I hit it.”

“We started shouting: ’Help! We’re here,”’ he said. “They found us a few hours later, they took me out about 8 1/2 hours later. ... I was OK but felt very bad, lonely. ... I still have a headache, but the doctor said I was fine.”

Oguz’s 16-year-old sister, Ela, and 12-year-old cousin, Irem were also saved.

“They took me out last because I was in good shape and the door was protecting me. I was hearing stones falling on it,” the boy said.

The government’s response to the quake appeared to be well-coordinated because of the country’s vast experience in dealing with killer quakes and their aftermaths. Hundreds of rescue teams from throughout Turkey rushed to the area, while Turkish Red Crescent dispatched tents and blankets and set up soup kitchens.

But there was still no power or running water and aid distribution was at times disrupted as desperate people stopped trucks even before they entered Ercis, leading some residents to complain that they could not get tents and stoves for their families.

Hundreds of tents were erected in two stadiums but many preferred to stay close to their homes for news of the missing or to keep watch on damaged buildings.

The government said it would set up temporary homes and would begin planning to rebuild destroyed areas with better housing. Turks across the country began sending blankets and warm clothing.

The earthquake’s epicentre was the village of Tabanli but damage there was minimal; No deaths were reported and its mud-brick homes were relatively unharmed.

Turkey lies in one of the world’s most active seismic zones and is crossed by numerous fault lines. In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck north-western Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.