70-year-old survives 34-hour ordeal

Izmir, November 1

Rescue workers extricated a 70-year-old man from a collapsed building in western Turkey on Sunday, some 34 hours after a strong earthquake in the Aegean Sea struck Turkey and Greece, killing at least 53 people and injuring more than 900.

Ahmet Citim, 70, was pulled out from the rubble shortly after midnight Sunday and was hospitalised. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted that he said: “I never lost my hope.”

It was the latest series of remarkable rescues after the Friday afternoon earthquake, which was centered in the Aegean northeast of the Greek island of Samos. Search-and-rescue team members were working in nine buildings on Sunday in the Turkish city of Izmir as day broke. — AP