LONDON: A member of a UK search and rescue team in the quake-hit Turkish province of Hatay has said there was still hope of finding survivors despite a “critical” 72-hour rescue window having lapsed, Sky News reported on Thursday.
More than 2,000 buildings have been destroyed in the southern area of Turkiye, situated only a few miles from the epicenter of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck in the early hours of Monday.
David O’Neill, of the UK International Search and Rescue Team, told Sky News that people continued to be found buried in the rubble.
He said: “It is surprising, but it is encouraging.”
The first three days after an earthquake are considered the most likely in which to find people alive.
According to a natural hazards expert at Nottingham Trent University, in England, the average survival rate after the first 24 hours drops from 74 percent to 22 percent by the third day, and 6 percent by the fifth.
“The way these buildings have collapsed they leave many survivable voids within them and given the time that this happened, a lot of people are wrapped up in bedding and such.
“While the people that were recovered yesterday were very dehydrated and slightly hypothermic because of the extremely cold conditions here, they are still alive,” O’Neill added.
He pointed out that families knew exactly where their loved ones were situated in collapsed buildings and had been able to reach them with food and water, helping keep them alive while rescuers worked to remove twisted metal and mounds of concrete surrounding them.
A team of 40 people were working to rescue two people trapped inside a building in central Hatay, Sky News reported.
On Tuesday, a plane carrying 77 British search and rescue personnel, equipment, and four dogs landed in Turkiye.
The team, made up of firefighters and staff from throughout the UK, are using seismic listening devices, concrete cutting and breaking equipment, and propping and shoring tools.
The World Health Organization has estimated that the final death toll from the quake in Turkiye and Syria could exceed 20,000.
