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| Korean rescuers save a 17-year-old boy from the ruins of a building in Antakya, Turkey, Saturday (local time). Courtesy of Korea Disaster Relief Team |
By Lee Hyo-jin
A Korean rescue team deployed in quake-hit Turkey rescued three more survivors from the rubble on Saturday (local time), raising the number it has saved to eight.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT) has managed to pull out two family members ― a 17-year-old boy and his 51-year-old mother from the ruins of a building in Antakya, at around 7:18 p.m. and 8:18 p.m., respectively. The rescuers used specialized equipment in the operation which lasted for some five hours.
The woman was in a relatively stable condition, but her son was unconscious as his lower body had been trapped under concrete slabs. The Korean medical team provided first aid to the teenager before he was transferred to a hospital.
Earlier in the day, around 2:02 p.m., a 65-year-old woman was rescued in a joint operation by the KDRT and local rescuers. She was transferred to a nearby hospital, the foreign ministry said.
"The Korean team has so far rescued eight survivors, and will continue its intensive search and rescue operation in areas where survivors are highly assumed to be located," the ministry said in a statement, Sunday.
The 118-member KDRT, comprised mainly of firefighters and army personnel, was dispatched to Turkey on a search and rescue mission earlier this week. It is the largest-ever Korean team to be dispatched for an international relief mission.
After landing at Gaziantep Airport in southeastern Turkey on Wednesday, it launched its operation early Thursday morning after setting up a base camp near a high school in Antakya, Hatay Province.
The KDRT rescued four survivors on the first day of its operation; a man in his 70s, a two-year-old girl and her father in his 40s, a 35-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl.
The death toll from the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake and powerful aftershocks that hit Turkey and Syria has surpassed 28,000. Despite the mounting death toll, rescue efforts are still underway to find more survivors.
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