In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, temperatures dipped to -5C early in the morning on Thursday. “People can die of hypothermia“, explains to AFP Ilan Kelman, researcher in natural disasters at the University College of London (UCL). And without water, even the survivors who manage to survive the cold and their injuries will go “begin to die after three, four or five days“. Efforts that are not in vain for so much. Evidenced by the many accounts of miraculous rescue relayed by the international press for 24 hours.
Thus, more than 76 hours after the disaster, a father and his two sons, who were prisoners under the rubble of an eight-storey building, were able to be rescued in Gaziantep. In Antakya, southern Turkey, a 16-year-old girl was rescued after 80 hours. In Hatay province, a 10-year-old girl was rescued after 90 hours under the rubble, while in Kahramanmaras, eastern Turkey, two sisters, aged 13 and 15, were rescued saved, almost 100 hours after the first shock.