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Rescuers in Turkey pull girl alive from rubble four days after quake

The death toll in the earthquake has reached 102.
The death toll in the earthquake has reached 102.

Rescuers in the Turkish coastal city of Izmir have pulled a young girl out alive from the rubble of a collapsed building four days after a strong earthquake hit Turkey and Greece.

The girl was seen being taken into an ambulance, wrapped in a thermal blanket, amid the sound of cheers and applause from rescue workers.

Reports on Twitter identified her as three-year-old Ayda Gezgin. The child had been trapped inside the rubble for 91 hours since Friday’s quake struck in the Aegean Sea and was the 107th person to have been pulled alive out of collapsed buildings.

Rescue workers pull Ayda Gezgin from the rubble
Rescue workers surround Ayda Gezgin in the rubble (AFAD via AP)

Rescuer Nusret Aksoy told reporters that he heard a child scream before locating the girl next to a dishwasher. He said Ayla waved at him, told him her name and said that she was OK.

“I got goosebumps and my colleague Ahmet cried,” he said.

Her rescue came a day after a three-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl were also pulled out alive from collapsed buildings in Izmir.

The death toll in the earthquake has reached 104, after emergency crews retrieved more bodies elsewhere in Turkey’s third largest city.

The US Geological Survey rated the quake at a magnitude of 7.0, although other agencies in Turkey recorded it as less severe.