A 17-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Kahramanmaras, Turkish state television reported on Thursday, a full 248 hours after the first major earthquake that killed at least 42,000 people, according to official figures.

According to TRT, rescuers on Thursday at noon (local time) managed to pull a young girl, reportedly named Alena Kurtz, alive from under the rubble of the city at the epicenter of earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.7 on February 6.

The footage shows a stretcher with a woman tied to it to keep her from falling out of a tunnel built by miners to reach her, being thrown into an ambulance that was leaving with a siren blaring.

#Kahramanmarash‘ta 248. saatte enkazdan bir yaralı kırıldı. pic.twitter.com/DazvP3ZSv8

— FOX HABER (@FOXhaber) February 16, 2023

However, at the same time, the hopes that had arisen in the last days in another building in the same city for the salvation of two women and a baby were lost.

Heartbeat and wall scratching sounds that were found at the scene have now been identified as belonging to three cats stuck in the rubble of a building.

The latest official tally by Turkish authorities, released on Thursday, puts the death toll at 36,187, plus at least 5,840 reported from Syria.

Source: TRT, Reuters.