Six-year-old among three rescued in Syria four days after quake

JINDAYRIS, Syria – Rescuers pulled three people, including a six-year-old, alive from the rubble in Syria on Friday, four days after

a devastating earthquake killed more than 22,700 people

in Syria and neighbouring Turkey, an AFP correspondent and state media reported.

Volunteers in the rebel-held north-western town of Jindayris pulled shell-shocked Musa Hmeidi from under the wreckage of a crumpled building as dozens of residents cheered them on, the AFP correspondent said.

In the government-held town of Jableh, emergency teams pulled two people alive from under the rubble, state media said.

The discovery of the three alive defies the odds as experts say more than 90 per cent of survivors are generally rescued within the first three days of emergency operations after such a major disaster.

The little boy’s bruised face was covered in bandages after medics gave him first aid on the spot in Jindayris, one of a string of rebel-held towns heavily damaged by Monday’s quake.

“Musa was rescued from under the rubble on the fifth day after the earthquake,” said Mr Abu Bakr Mohammed, one of the volunteer rescuers who pulled out the young boy.

“He suffered minor injuries, while his brother died. His (other) family members are still under the debris. We know nothing about them as of yet.”

Volunteers assisted by

the White Helmets emergency response group

have been racing against time to find survivors with few means at their disposal, sometimes digging with their bare hands or using household utensils to remove the collapsed masonry.

On Tuesday, rescuers in Jindayris found a newborn girl alive under the rubble,

her umbilical cord still attached to her dead mother.

The massive quake killed more than 22,700 people in Turkey and Syria, in one of the region’s worst disasters in a century. Six survivors were also pulled from under the rubble in Turkey on Friday. AFP