Rescuers in Turkey pull girl alive from rubble four days after quake

Rescuers in the Turkish coastal city of Izmir have pulled a young girl out alive from the rubble of a collapsed building four days after a strong earthquake hit Turkey and Greece.

The girl was seen being taken into an ambulance, wrapped in a thermal blanket, amid the sound of cheers and applause from rescue workers.

Media reports identified her as four-year-old Ayla Gezgin. She had been trapped inside the rubble for 91 hours since Friday’s quake struck in the Aegean Sea.

Rescuer Nusret Aksoy told reporters that he heard a child scream before locating the girl next to a dishwasher. He said Ayla waved at him, told him her name and said that she was OK.

Her rescue came a day after a three-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl were also pulled out alive from collapsed buildings in Izmir.

The death toll in the earthquake has reached 102, after emergency crews retrieved more bodies elsewhere in Turkey’s third largest city.

The US Geological Survey rated the quake at a magnitude of 7.0, although other agencies in Turkey recorded it as less severe.