Six-year-old among four rescued in Syria four days after quake

JINDIRES, Syria — Rescuers pulled four people, including a six-year-old, alive from the rubble in Syria Friday, four days after a devastating earthquake killed more than 22,700 people in Syria and neighboring Turkey, an AFP correspondent and state media reported.

Volunteers in the rebel-held northwestern town of Jindires pulled shell-shocked Musa Hmeidi from under the wreckage of a crumpled building as dozens of residents cheered them on, the AFP correspondent said.

In the government-held town of Jableh, emergency teams pulled three people alive from under the rubble, state news agency SANA said.

The discovery of the four still alive defied the odds as experts say more than 90 percent of survivors are generally rescued within the first three days of emergency operations after such a major disaster.

The little boy’s bruised face was covered in bandages after medics gave him first aid on the spot in Jindayris, one of a string of rebel-held towns that was heavily damaged by Monday’s quake.

“Musa was rescued from under the rubble on the fifth day after the earthquake,” said Abu Bakr Mohammed, one of the volunteer rescuers who pulled out the young boy.

“He suffered minor injuries, while his brother died. His (other) family members are still under the debris. We know nothing about them as of yet.”

Rescuers and residents have been racing against time to find survivors with few means at their disposal, sometimes digging with their bare hands or using household utensils to remove the collapsed masonry.

On Tuesday, rescuers in Jindiris found a newborn girl alive under the rubble, her umbilical cord still attached to her dead mother.

The massive quake killed more than 22,700 people in Turkey and Syria, in one of the region’s worst disasters in a century. Six survivors were also pulled from under the rubble in Turkey on Friday.