Chinese rescuers rush to find more quake survivors
The first earthquake, at magnitude 7.8, hit near Gaziantep in southeastern Turkiye at 4:17 am local time on last Monday at a depth of about 17.9 kilometers, followed by a second one at magnitude 7.5, at 1:24 pm.
China's official and civilian rescue teams worked against the clock over the weekend to find survivors trapped under rubble, following the Feb 6 earthquakes in Turkiye and Syria.
An 82-member China Search and Rescue Team arrived in Turkiye on Wednesday to join earthquake relief efforts in the country. Members of the Blue Sky Rescue Team and other Chinese civil relief squads were also in Turkiye to join the international rescue work. On Friday, following a three-hour effort, a woman, the fourth survivor saved by Chinese rescuers, was pulled out to safety from the rubble of collapsed buildings over 96 hours after the earthquake.
By Sunday, the official rescue team from the Chinese mainland had saved five people and located eight bodies while surveying 49 collapsed buildings in Antakya, one of the worst-hit cities in Turkiye's southern Hatay province.
We sincerely hope that the people affected by the earthquake will be safe and the life of the Turkish people will return to normal at an early date. May there be world peace and no disaster.