Excitement after a small girl was pulled out of the rubble alive in Turkey’s Izmir on Tuesday, some 91 hours after an earthquake flattened parts of this coastal city.
Video from the scene showed an ashen-faced and wide-eyed Ayda Gezgin, 3, as she was freed from the wreckage of a building. Crowds of rescuers in hardhats clapped and cried “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Great,” in celebration.
The child, whose hair was caked with dust, was immediately wrapped in a gold foil blanket and carried to an ambulance through a sea of rescue workers.
Ayda is the name of the miracle,” tweeted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Thank you God to give us new hope with your smiley eyes.”
Her rescue, which occurred shortly after 10 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET), was broadcast live on Turkish TV. Rescue worker Cemil Kaya told NBC News by telephone that Ayda was found behind a dishwasher in the remnants of a kitchen.
The 7.0 magnitude quake that struck in the Aegean Sea last week killed 102 people and injured 994 people, the country’s disaster authority known by its Turkish acronym AFAD said.
