Miracle rescues in Izmir provide Turks hope following earthquake
A second 3-year-old girl is saved from the rubble, bringing optimism to Izmir even as the number of deaths rise from the 7.0-magnitude quake.
IZMIR, Turkey — The morning of Nov. 3, a group of rescuers pulled out 3-year-old Ayda Gezgin out of the rubble. The girl had been buried for 91 hours following the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city, on Oct. 30.
Ayda was found trapped behind a kitchen appliance in her family’s apartment in a collapsed eight-story building. Her father was saved from the rubble the previous day but her mother, Fidan, who was in the flat with her, was killed in the quake, according to Kerem Kinik, the head of Kizilay, Turkey’s Red Crescent.
“I have a 6-year-old son,” Cem Erdogan, the rescuer who found Ayda, told Al-Monitor. He had come to Izmir from the southeastern town of Tunceli to help local rescue teams. “When I heard her voice and saw those olive eyes, I felt as if I had saved my own boy. She has a zest for living, that one!”
“Ayda is a miracle,” tweeted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a rare sentimental post. “Thank God as he has given us new hope through your smiling eyes.” The president, flanked by his top brass, visited the city, which is an opposition stronghold, Nov. 1.
