Woman is pulled alive from quake rubble 176 hours after disaster

Tears of joy as victims are pulle from rubble a week after quake

- Ross Lydall

A WOMAN trapped for 176 hours in the rubble of a building was rescued today as the death toll from the Turkish and Syrian earthquakes passed 35,000.

Serap Donmez was pulled from the ruins of a collapsed apartment block at Cebrail Mahallesi in Turkey's central Antakya district more than a week after the disaster struck. Search teams were described as shedding tears of joy as she was taken to hospital while one person broke down and called out "mother" as she was rescued.

It came after Sibel Kaya, 40, was pulled from the wreckage of a five-storey building in the Turkish town of Islahiye, in Gaziantep province, after 170 hours. Another team of rescuers was reportedly tunnelling to reach a grandmother, mother and 30-day-old baby. Earlier, a 60-year-woman, Erengul Onder, was rescued from debris in the town of Besni in Adiyaman province.

But a week after the two massive quakes, rescues were becoming fewer as an unknown number of people perished in the sub-zero temperatures across a vast area of south-eastern Turkey and north-west Syria. Some survivors were still waiting in front of collapsed buildings for the bodies of their loved ones to be retrieved. Turkish officials said about 80,000 people were in hospital, and more than one million in temporary shelters.