The presence of mind of a 19-year-old woman from the Turkish city of Antakya, saved her entire family from being crushed under the rubble of the two powerful earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday, February 6, killing more than 26,000 people.
Umit Aslanoglu, got up from bed when her dog “Suzi” got restless and barked into the corridor at night.
Aslanoglu, who felt the first tremor of the earthquake within seconds, immediately woke up her mother, brother and aunt, according to Anadolu Agency.
Meanwhile, seeing the surrounding buildings destroyed, Aslanoglu jumps from the balcony onto the piles of rubble to help her brother and aunt to get out of the house.
As the building shakes with the aftershocks, she returns to save her mother and dog at great risk of her own life.
“At that time, the building already fell on us. The piles of rubble hit my waist. I pushed the rubble somehow, I got up. Our only way out was jumping from the balcony,” she told Anadolu.
The family managed to escape to the northern province of Trabzon, where they sought shelter at a relative’s house.
More than 27,000 people were killed and 85,000 injured in two powerful earthquakes that rocked southern Turkey Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.
Search and rescue efforts continue in areas where people were pulled alive from the rubble after the earthquakes that lasted for more than 100 hours.
