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Survivors Continue to Emerge from Turkey Earthquake; Death Toll Tops 41,000


Rescuers carry the body of a victim taken out of the rubble, in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake, in Antakya, Turkey, Feb. 17, 2023.
Rescuers carry the body of a victim taken out of the rubble, in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake, in Antakya, Turkey, Feb. 17, 2023.

Turkish rescuers pulled a teenage boy alive from the rubble of a collapsed building 260 hours after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southeast Turkey and Syria, Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported Friday.

Fourteen-year-old Osman Halebiye was taken to a hospital in Antakya.

Later, two men, Mehmet Ali Sakiroglu, 26, and Mustafa Avci, 33, were rescued from the same building's rubble, news agency DHA said.

After he was rescued, Avci saw his newborn baby on a cellphone call with his parents, according to Reuters.

The rescue efforts in Turkey have come amid criticism about unenforced building codes. Thousands of buildings collapsed in the February 6 earthquake, leaving massive amounts of rubble for rescue teams to search through.

More than 41,000 people in Turkey and Syria have been killed in the earthquake and hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes.

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