The death toll from the earthquakes that occurred on Monday, February 6, in Turkey has risen to 40,642 people, Yunus Sezer, head of the Turkish disaster management agency AFAD, said today.

Today is Saturday, three, including a child, were pulled out alive from the ruins of a building in Antioch, southern Turkey, 296 hours after the earthquake. However, the child subsequently died of dehydration. The survivors are a married couple from Syria. Two other children in the family also did not survive.

“We heard screams when we were digging an hour ago. When we find people alive, our joy is indescribable,” said a member of the rescue team.

The video below shows how the father of the family asks for water.

His first request was for water… See the moment a Syrian citizen was rescued after 13 days under rubble in #Antakya. pic.twitter.com/mt8u6acVl9

— Oriannalyla 🇺🇦 (@Lyla_lilas) February 18, 2023

According to Turkish media, rescuers from Turkey and Kyrgyzstan pulled the three survivors out of the rubble.

Rescuers asked for absolute silence and that everyone sit or crouch while the teams climbed to the top of the rubble of the building where the family was found to listen for any other sounds with an electronic detector.

As rescue work continued, one of the workers yelled, “Take a deep breath if you can hear my voice.”

Workers later called off the search when excavators arrived and climbed into the rubble to begin clearing it.

Yesterday, Friday evening, another survivor, a 45-year-old man, was pulled out from under the ruins 278 hours after the earthquake in the province of Hatay, in which Antioch is located, which was badly damaged by the earthquake.

Earthquake in Turkey: three people rescued after 296 hours under rubble

In Antakya district, the center of Hatay province. https://t.co/xBXH8FImVf pic.twitter.com/kjMS4xAAUG

— AGENCY ANADOLU (FRANCE) (@aa_french) February 18, 2023

Chances of survival now seem lesser around the epicenter further north, in mountainous areas like Kahramanmaras and even in snow-covered areas like Elbistan and Antiyaman, where temperatures dropped to -15 degrees Celsius overnight, according to AFP teams.

Meanwhile, soccer player Christian Aciu was found dead under the rubble of his home almost two weeks after the earthquake in Turkey, his agent confirmed.

Atsu has been missing since February 6, the date of the deadly earthquake that caused his apartment in Antioch to collapse.

“Atsu’s lifeless body was found under the rubble,” Murat Uzunmehmet told reporters. “We find various items, his mobile phone was also found,” he said.

More than 45,000 people have died in the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, and the toll is expected to rise as some 264,000 apartments in Turkey were destroyed, and many of them are still missing in the country’s worst modern disaster.

On Friday, eleven days after the earthquake, three survivors were pulled from the rubble in Turkey. Turkey’s death toll stands at 39,672, while neighboring Syria has recorded more than 5,800 deaths.