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Rescue teams in southern Turkey say they are still hearing voices from under the rubble more than a week after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake, offering a glimmer of hope of finding more survivors.
Live images broadcast on CNN affiliate CNN Turk showed rescuers working in two areas of the Kahramanmaras region, where they were trying to save three sisters believed to be buried under the debris.
In the same region, emergency workers saved a 35-year-old woman who was believed to have been buried for around 205 hours, according to state broadcaster TRT Haber.
Two brothers – 17-year-old Muhammed Enes Yeninar and 21-year-old brother Abdulbaki Yennir – were also pulled from collapsed buildings on Tuesday, the broadcaster also reported. Further east, in the city of Adiyaman, rescuers pulled an 18-year-old boy and a man alive from the rubble, while Ukraine’s rescue team pulled a woman alive out of the rubble in the southern province of Hatay, according to CNN Turk.
Also humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers’ search-and-rescue and medical teams were rejoicing after freeing an 80-year-old woman who had been buried under rubble in Türkiye’s province of Hatay.
Eight days after the tremor and its violent aftershocks, more than 41,200 people have been confirmed dead across Turkey and Syria, and survival stories are becoming few and far between.
UNICEF said it fears that even without verified numbers, it is “tragically clear” that the number of children killed following the quake “will continue to grow.”
James Elder, a spokesman for the United Nations children’s agency, said 4.6 million children live in the 10 Turkish provinces hit by the disaster, while in Syria, 2.5 million children have been affected.
As rescue operations start to shift to recovery efforts, UN workers are racing to funnel aid to survivors in Syria through two new border crossings approved by the government in Damascus.
The United Nations welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s decision on Monday to open “the two crossing points of Bab Al-Salam and Al Ra’ee” between Turkey and northwest Syria “for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid.”
Eleven trucks with UN aid crossed into northwest Syria via the Bab Al-Salam passage on Tuesday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths tweeted, adding that 26 more trucks passed into the region via the Bab Al-Hawa crossing.
The news came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday the two new border crossings that will take aid inside Syria from Turkey “are open and goods are flowing.”
Guterres emphasized that human suffering from this natural disaster should not be made worse by manmade obstacles such as access, funding and supplies.
The UN is launching a $397 million humanitarian appeal for victims of the earthquake in Syria for three months and finalizing a similar appeal for survivors in Turkey, Guterres announced.