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Rescuers heard Ayda Gezgin's screams from under the rubble and
managed to pull her out hours later, taking her out on a
stretcher as emergency teams continued to search five destroyed
apartment blocks for survivors.
As the child was pulled from the rubble, covered in dust but
unhurt, one rescue worker hugged and kissed her, and some called
"Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest). There was applause when the
young girl, whose age was variously given as three or four years
old, was carried away on a stretcher.
"She smiled, she was waiting for us," said Levent Onur, one of
the rescue workers pulling Ayda out, adding the child had been
stuck behind a washing machine which shielded her from injury.
Ayda's age
"The name of our miracle after 91 hours is Ayda. Thank God,"
tweeted cabinet minister Murat Kurum.
The Interior Ministry later said that Ayda's mother was found
dead by rescuers shortly after her child's rescue.
Deputy Health Minister Muhammet Guven told reporters at the
hospital where Ayda was taken that the child was in good health
and that she was receiving treatment.
Friday's earthquake in the Aegean Sea was the deadliest to hit
Turkey in nearly a decade, with 105 people killed in Izmir and
two teenagers on the Greek island of Samos, according to
Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD)
The quake injured 1,026 people, with 143 still receiving
treatment in Izmir, AFAD said. More than 3,500 tents and 13,000
beds are being used for temporary shelters in Turkey, where
relief efforts have drawn in nearly 8,000 personnel and 25
rescue dogs, the agency said.
Istanbul-based Kandilli Institute said Friday's quake had a
magnitude of 6.9. There have been 1,475 aftershocks, AFAD said.
Turkey is crossed by fault lines and is prone to earthquakes.
More than 500 people were killed in a 2011 quake in the eastern
city of Van, while another in January this year killed 41 people
in the eastern province of Elazig.
In 1999, two powerful quakes killed 18,000 people in
northwestern Turkey. AFAD said Friday's earthquake had a
magnitude of 6.6, with some 1,400 aftershocks.
(Reporting by Daren Butler, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Yesim Dikmen;
Editing by Dominic Evans and Raissa Kasolowsky)
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