Turkey earthquake: Nurses ran into neonatal unit to stabilise cots
Heartwarming moment protective nurses ran into intensive care unit in Turkey to stop shaking cots for sick babies from tumbling over during mega quake
- More than 33,000 people are so far confirmed to have died in Monday’s quakes
- UN aid chiefs said yesterday the death toll could double to exceed 50,000
Footage has emerged from the moment a catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey showing nurses rushing to try and save newborn babies amid the violent tremor.
Turkish politician Fatma Şahin shared the video online and praised the ‘amazing’ neonatal staff that rushed into an intensive care room and tried to hold the infants’ incubators steady.
The footage was taken from the ward’s CCTV cameras, which remained working during Monday’s 7.8 and 7.7 magnitude earthquakes.
The clip has garnered huge praise online as it shows a moment of selflessness from frontline workers desperate to save lives, as the death toll from the quakes which impacted Turkey and Syria climbed past 33,000 on Sunday.
Miraculously, some survivors have been pulled from piles of rubble in Turkey today, including a ten-year-old girl, but tensions are rising in the region due to a lack of food, water and shelter.
But it comes as UN chiefs warn the world has ‘failed’ Syria, which has seen almost no aid compared to the millions of pounds that have poured into Turkey in the last week.
At the start of the clip the intensive care ward appears empty of staff as the incubators begin to shake
The footage shows the moment the first earthquake hit, when the ward appeared empty except for incubators.
There are least five babies in the room, and their incubators begin violently shaking, with some moving on the floor.
Two nurses dressed in black scrubs rush into the ward seconds later, and hold those most affected as still as possible.
The clip shows how they continued to hold the incubators steady until after the shaking stopped.
The incident was recorded in a hospital in Gaziantep, south Turkey.
It comes as a 10-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble after six days in quake-hit Turkey.
Video footage shows the young girl, Cudi, being pulled from a deep, narrow hole in the ground by rescuers after being trapped for almost a week.
The debris-covered child is then placed on a bed, covered in a foil blanket and carried to safety.
It comes amid fears that the death toll could reach 50,000, currently passing 33,000 since the earthquake struck on Monday.
Multiple aid organisations were forced to suspend operations due to security fears after gunfire was reported in the disaster zone.
Two staff members enter the ward seconds after the quake began to try and keep the infants stable
The two women, believed to be nurses, held several of the incubators in place to try and limit their movements
While the nurse on the left held one incubator steady, the nurse on the right tried to keep two from moving around
Meanwhile, German rescuers and the Austrian army reported clashes between unnamed factions, which are expected to become more violent as food supplies decrease in coming days.
In a central district of one of the worst hit cities, Antakya in southern Turkey, business owners emptied their shops on Sunday to prevent merchandise from being stolen by looters.
Residents and aid workers who came from other cities cited worsening security conditions, with widespread accounts of businesses and collapsed homes being robbed.
Facing questions over his response to the earthquake as he prepares for a national election that is expected to be the toughest of his two decades in power, President Tayyip Erdogan has said the government will deal firmly with looters.
Officials in Turkey said 113 arrest warrants were issued in connection with the construction of buildings that collapsed in the quake.
Rescuers also pulled a seven-month-old baby and a teenage girl from the rubble earlier today.
UN emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths told Sky: ‘I think it is difficult to estimate precisely [how many have died] as we need to get under the rubble but I’m sure it will double or more.
‘That’s terrifying. This is nature striking back in a really harsh way.’
He added: ‘We haven’t really begun to count the number of dead.’
He added he expects the death toll to at least double after he arrived in southern Turkey yesterday to assess the quake’s damage.
A 10-year-old girl, Cudi, was pulled from the rubble almost a week after the quake in Turkey
She is placed on a bed, covered in a foil blanket and carried to safety by rescuers
The rescue team entered a deep hole before pulling out Cudi whose hair and body was covered in dust and debris
Dozens of rescuers came to her aid after she was trapped underground for almost a week
Families were racing against time to find their missing relatives’ bodies in southern Turkey
UN relief chief Martin Griffiths said he expected the death toll to at least double after he arrived in southern Turkey yesterday to assess the quake’s damage
Officials in Turkey said 113 arrest warrants were issued in connection with the construction of buildings that collapsed in the quake
Tens of thousands of rescue workers continue to scour flattened neighbourhoods despite freezing weather that has deepened the misery of millions.
A seven-month-old baby named Hamza was rescued in southern Hatay more than 140 hours after the quake, while Esma Sultan, 13, was saved in Gaziantep.
Families were racing against time to find their missing relatives’ bodies in southern Turkey.
‘We hear (the authorities) will no longer keep the bodies waiting after a certain period of time, they say they will take them and bury them,’ Tuba Yolcu said in Kahramanmaras.
Another family clutched each other in grief at a cotton field transformed into a cemetery, with a seemingly endless stream of bodies arriving for swift burial.
Griffiths toured quake-hit areas of Kahramanmaras on Saturday, telling Sky News he expected the death toll to ‘double or more’.
‘Soon, the search and rescue people will make way for the humanitarian agencies whose job it is to look after the extraordinary numbers of those affected for the next months,’ he said in a video posted to Twitter.
Today 28-year-old Elif Kirmizi was rescued from under the rubble after quakes hit
Many people came to her rescue as she was placed on a bed and carried to safety
The United Nations has warned that at least 870,000 people urgently need hot meals across Turkey and Syria. In Syria alone, up to 5.3 million people may have been made homeless.
Almost 26 million people have been affected by the earthquake, the World Health Organization (WHO) said as it launched a flash appeal on Saturday for $42.8 million to cope with immediate health needs.
It warned that dozens of hospitals had been damaged.
Turkey’s disaster agency said more than 32,000 people from Turkish organisations are working on search-and-rescue efforts. There are also at least 8,294 international rescuers.
Restaurants are working hard in Gaziantep city, Turkey’s gourmet capital, among tens of thousands of volunteers to help and feed families.
‘Our co-workers are in a bad situation. Their families are victims and their houses are destroyed,’ said Burhan Cagdas, the owner of a local diner that has served up to 4,000 free meals a day outdoors since the tragedy struck.
Tens of thousands of rescue workers continue to scour flattened neighbourhoods despite freezing weather that has deepened the misery of millions
Turkey’s disaster agency said more than 32,000 people from Turkish organisations are working on search-and-rescue efforts. There are also 8,294 international rescuers
His own family has been sleeping in cars since Monday in the city where at least 2,000 have died and tens of thousands have been forced out of unsafe homes.
Clashes have also been reported in Syria and the UN rights office on Friday urged all sides in the affected area – where Kurdish militants and Syrian rebels operate – to allow humanitarian access.
Austrian soldiers and German rescue workers called off their searches for several hours on Saturday in Hatay, citing difficult security amid firing between local groups.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, considered a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, has announced a temporary halt in fighting to ease recovery work.
A border crossing between Armenia and Turkey also opened for the first time in 35 years on Saturday to allow five trucks carrying food and water into the quake-hit region.
Almost 26 million people have been affected by the earthquake, the World Health Organization (WHO) said
In Hatay, 2-year-old Aliye Dagli, was rescued from the remains of his collapsed home-117 hours after Turkey was hit
A cat rescued from collapsed buildings appears miraculously calm and untouched by the catastrophic quakes
Officials say 12,141 buildings were either destroyed or seriously damaged in the earthquake
Aid has been slow to arrive in Syria, where years of conflict have ravaged the healthcare system and parts of the country remain under the control of rebels.
‘We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria,’ United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths tweeted from the Turkey-Syria border on Sunday, where only a single crossing is open for UN aid supplies.
He added: ‘Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived. My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can. That’s my focus now.’
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took a flight full of emergency medical equipment into the quake-stricken city of Aleppo on Saturday.
READ MORE: Life and death in Turkey quake zone: A grieving father carries dead body of his child at funeral while rescuers grab a two-year-old boy from the rubble as death toll goes past 25,000
Tedros toured damaged areas of the city and met two children who lost their parents in the earthquake.
‘There are no words to express the pain they are going through,’ he tweeted.
Damascus said it had approved the delivery of humanitarian assistance to quake-hit areas outside its control in Idlib province and a convoy was expected to leave on Sunday. The delivery was later postponed without explanation.
The transport ministry said 57 aid planes had landed in Syria this week.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the Security Council to authorise the opening of new cross-border aid points between Turkey and Syria.
Turkey said it was working on opening two new routes into rebel-held parts of Syria.
Five days of grief and anguish have been slowly building into rage at the poor quality of buildings as well as the government’s response to Turkey’s worst disaster in nearly a century.
Officials say 12,141 buildings were either destroyed or seriously damaged in the earthquake.
Turkish police reportedly detained 12 people on Saturday, including contractors, over collapsed buildings in the southeastern provinces of Gaziantep and Sanliurfa.
Several were detained at airports while attempting to flee the country.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 131 people were under investigation for their alleged responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the quakes. While the quakes were powerful, many in Turkey blame faulty construction for multiplying the devastation.
Rescue teams from all around the world, including more than 70 specialist search and rescue workers from the UK, have rushed to the region to try and reach as many survivors as possible before time runs out.
It is estimated that survivors can live for up to a week under the rubble, and teams have turned to thermal imaging and sniffer dogs to help find them.
Teams from Austria, Germany and India are among those who remain in the area, alongside British rescuers.
The British team includes firefighters, a structural engineer to assess the danger of sites, and four sniffer dogs.
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