October 26, 2011. It’s been called a miracle . . . a tiny, 14-day old baby girl (along with mom and grandmother) was one of few people rescued yesterday in the aftermath of an earthquake which struck Turkey on Sunday.
The dedicated team of rescuers burst into spontaneous applause on seeing the infant alive and sound, despite its horrible ordeal.
More than 400 people have lost their lives in the disaster.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, the earthquake’s epicentre was the village of Tabanli in Eastern Turkey.
Turkey lies in one of the world’s most active seismic zones and is crossed by numerous fault lines. In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck north-western Turkey, killing about 18 000 people.
Istanbul, the country’s largest city with more than 12 million people, lies in northwestern Turkey near a major fault line, and experts say tens of thousands could be killed if a major quake struck there.