Family of five trapped for 129 hours pulled from earthquake rubble

Five members of the same family have been pulled alive from the rubble of their home in Turkey – 129 hours after the catastrophic earthquake.

The father insisted his children were rescued first before he was brought out last by search teams.

The rescue provided a sliver of hope in the face of the overwhelming devastation from Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake, which struck the border region of Turkey and Syria.

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More than 25,000 people have died from the disaster which has also left thousands of buildings in ruins.

A UN aid chief has warned the number of dead is likely to more than double.

At least another 80,000 have been injured and millions are homeless.

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Hopes have been fading of finding people alive given the freezing temperatures, but despite this survivors are still being plucked from beneath the debris.

In the hard-hit town of Nurdagi, in Gaziantep province, rescuers first recovered mother and daughter Havva and Fatmagul Aslan, who had been trapped beneath the wreckage of their home.

They later reached the father, Hasan Aslan, but he insisted his other daughter, Zeynep, and son Saltik Bugra be saved first.

Brought out last, rescuers cheered and chanted “God is Great” as he was taken to an ambulance.

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Emergency workers have moved to using thermal cameras to help identify signs of life – an indication of the weakness of those still trapped.

Temperatures remain bitterly cold across the large region and many people have no shelter.

The devastating earthquake has heaped further suffering on people in a region already impacted by Syria’s 12-year civil war.

The conflict has isolated many areas of Syria and complicated efforts to get aid in.

The UN refugee agency has estimated nearly five and half million people may have been left homeless in Syria.

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