The death toll from catastrophic earquake in Turkey, Syria overpasses 20,700 as rescuers pulled more survivors from beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings on Thursday, reports AP.
However, hopes were starting to fade of finding many more people alive more than three days the terrible natural disaster.
Emergency crews working through the night in the city of Antakya were able to pull a young girl, Hazal Guner, from the ruins of a building and also rescued her father, Soner Guner, two hours later, news agency IHA reported.
As they prepared the man to be loaded into an ambulance, rescue crews told him that his daughter was alive and they were taking him to the same field hospital for treatment.
“I love you all,” he faintly whispered to the rescue team.
In Diyarbakir, east of Antakya, rescuers freed an injured woman from a collapsed building in the early morning hours but found the three people next to her in the rubble dead, the DHA news agency reported.
In addition to 12,873 people killed in Turkey, the country's disaster management agency said more than 60,000 have been injured. On the Syrian side of the border, 3,162 have been reported dead and more than 5,000 injured.
Tens of thousands are thought to have lost their homes. In Antakya, former residents of a collapsed building huddled around an outdoor fire overnight into Thursday, wrapping blankets tightly around themselves to try and stay warm.
Serap Arslan said many people remained under the rubble of the nearby building, including her mother and brother. She said machinery only started to move some of the heavy concrete on Wednesday.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
