November 3rd, 2020
Ayda Gezgin was found this morning after a rescue worker spotted her hand waving in the wreckage. (EPA)
91 hours after Friday’s quake, a four-year-old girl has been rescued after being trapped in a building that collapsed during the earthquake in the Turkish city of Izmir. Ayda Gezgin was pulled out of the rubble this morning. Nusret Aksoy, the rescue worker who reached her, said he had spotted her hand waving in the wreckage of a collapsed apartment block in the Bayrakli district.
On Friday, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the region, the epicenter of which was close to the Greek island of Samos; 994 were injured and 147 are still in the hospital. More than 100 are still missing. Rescue teams have descended on Izmir, Turkey’s third-biggest city, from across the country and are still working at nine sites to try to find survivors.
The authorities have warned that more buildings are likely to collapse or will have to be pulled down; the team at the Riza Bey apartment was forced to evacuate the site after shaking was detected in the neighboring building. Scores of buildings have been evacuated around the various wreckage sites and thousands of people who have had to leave their homes are now sleeping in tents in the city’s parks according to Reuters.
Support Our Relief Effort
Aviation Without Borders USA, together with our German sister agency (Wings of Hope) are working with our local counterpart and local authorities to address the urgent needs on the ground. The first shipment of 20 pallets of COVID-19 PPE’s and winterization items are scheduled to be delivered from our Frankfurt freight forwarding facilities in the coming hours.
The local emergency authorities have identified personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection prevention and control (IPC) items, and hygiene supplies being especially needed to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among people left homeless by the quake.