‘What Day Is It,’ Asks Woman Rescued More Than A Week After Turkiye Quake

The confused woman who survived the powerful earthquake stayed under the rubble with her two children for 228 hours, according to the news agency

A woman rescued from the rubble of the Turkey earthquake after 228 hours asks rescuers “What day is it?” This is the state of hundreds of people who survived the powerful earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria more than nine days back. Another woman aged 77 was also rescued from the debris, reported Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu on Wednesday.

Rescuers were still engaged in pulling people from the rubble going against the hopes that the time for survival had passed. In a video released by Turkey’s Ministry of National Defence on Wednesday showed rescuers pulling out the 77-year-old woman from debris in the city of Adiyaman on Tuesday. They rescued her after 212 hours since the earthquake hit the region.

Identified as Fatma Gungor, she was soon hugged by the family after she was rescued.

While the woman in a confused state who asked about the day has survived with her two children under the rubble for 228 hours, according to the news agency. Sharing the experience of finding the mother, rescue personnel Mehmet Eryilmaz said, “The mother was happy to see us. I held her hand at first. We talked, chatted, and calmed her down.”

Eryilmaz also shared more conversation with the mother, he said she first wanted to drink water but was told that they can only give after checking with the paramedics. She said her name was Ela and she had two kids, a girl and a boy, who were pulled from the rubble with her. She is a foreign national but did not mention what nationality, according to the news agency.

The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria after the powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6 has crossed 41,000.

Three powerful earthquakes of magnitude 7.8, 7.6, and 6 on the Richter scale jolted southern and Central Turkey on Monday. The tremors of the quakes were felt as far as the island of Cyprus and even Egypt.

Television images showed shocked people in Turkey standing in the snow in their pyjamas, watching rescuers dig through the debris of damaged homes.