Turkish rescue workers were extracted on Thursday a 17-year-old girl from the rubble of a building which collapsed after last week’s devastating earthquake, though there is diminishing hope of finding survivors.

Aleyna Olmez was rescued 11 days after the tearthquake with a magnitude of 7.8, which destroyed entire cities and caused nearly 40,000 deaths in southeastern Turkey and Syria.

“He seemed fine. He opened and closed his eyes,” Ali Akdogan, a miner who took part in the rescue operations in Kahramanmaras, a town near the quake’s epicenter, told AFP.

“We’ve been working here, in this building, for a week now (…) We came hoping to hear something,” he said.

Builders of earthquake-collapsed buildings in Turkey arrested

“We are happy when we find something aliveeven if it’s a cat,” he added.

The girl’s uncle, crying, hugged all the rescuers one by one and told them: “We will never forget you.”

But after the rescue, the Turkish army urged media and locals to leave the scene, while rescue teams began removing bodies from the rubble.

According to the latest balances of the authorities and doctors, at least 36,187 people died in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria from the earthquake, occurred on February 6 and the aftershocks; bringing the total confirmed balance to 39,875 dead.

Turkey suspended rescue efforts in some regions. The government of Syria, a country at war, took the same measure in areas under its control.

On the other hand, a 55-year-old man from Ankara was arrested in Turkey’s Hatay province (south) while trying to steal a baby from a hospital, taking advantage of the chaos caused by the earthquake, Anadolu’s official press reported. desk.

The man introduced himself as a former police officer at the establishment, located in the town of Samandag, and claimed a baby, giving his name, Anadolu said. He was arrested and handcuffed and was in possession of several false identity documents.