BAYRAKLI: A three-year-old girl was pulled from rubble Tuesday, 91 hours after a powerful earthquake hit western Turkey, offering a ray of hope for grieving families as the death toll soared past 100.
But only hours after Ayda Gezgin was miraculously recovered in the hard-hit town of Bayrakli, rescuers found the lifeless body of her mother Fidan, 38, in the same room of their destroyed apartment.
Turks have been riding waves of emotion, from profound grief to elated relief, depending on whether bodies or survivors are extracted from the broken slabs of highrise buildings levelled by Friday's 7.0-magnitude quake.
Felt as far away as Athens, the quake killed two teenagers on their way home from school on the Greek island of Samos, where some homes collapsed. But most of the damage struck in and around Turkey's Aegean resort city of Izmir, where the death toll reached 109 on Tuesday.
None of the Turkish coastal towns were hit harder than Bayrakli, a suburb of Izmir dotted with seven- and eight-floor apartment buildings, dozens of which were either damaged or completely destroyed.
The joy and grief felt by the Gezgin family within a matter of hours encapsulates the emotions tearing apart Izmir and the entire country as Turkey recovers from its biggest disaster in years.
Rescuers, exhausted but determined on their fourth day of round-the-clock work, broke out into applause and shouts of "Allahu Akbar" - or "God is Greatest" - the moment they realised they had rescued Ayda.
"We have witnessed a miracle in the 91st hour," Izmir mayor Tunc Soyer tweeted.
"The miracle's name is Ayda," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted moments later.
"With your smiling eyes, you have inspired new hope for us. Thank God. Get well soon, my lovely little one."
The rescue came a day after a four-year-old and a 14-year-old were found alive in the same district, providing encouragement to rescue workers, despite persistent fears of aftershocks.
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