A weeping child, a mad scramble, then cries of joy: Girl buried for four days rescued from Turkey quake

It began Tuesday morning when tired, despondent rescue workers heard weeping from beneath the rubble of the Izmir earthquake that struck Friday, collapsing 20 apartment buildings and killing at least 102 people.

It ended minutes later when the rescue workers pulled Ayda Gezgin out from under the wreckage of the Riza Bey apartment complex in the Bayrakli district of Izmir.  

After 91 hours under the fallen building, miraculously, she was alive. Ayda even managed a faint smile as she was carried away by cheering rescue workers. Now, they were now the ones weeping, as they praised God and rushed her to medics.

“Allahu akbar!” they called out in joy, according to video footage posted to the internet and broadcast live across the country.  

"We heard a child crying,” one of the rescue workers told the Haberturk news channel. “And this became a light for us."  

As she was taken to hospital, Ayda had a request.  

“Food,” she said.

“What would you like?” the rescue worker asked, in footage broadcast on television.  

“Meatballs and a yogurt drink,” she said.  

“We will order it now,” the rescue worker said. “Your father will also come.”

No one has yet told Ayda, who is listed in stable condition, that her mother, Fidan, had perished in the earthquake, according to Turkish media.

Ayda, described as both three and four-years-old in media reports, was one of more than 100 survivors rescued from the earthquake – which had a magnitude between 6.6 and 6.9 on the Richter scale – that struck the city as well as nearby Greek islands.  

The earthquake has mobilised Turks around the country in support of Izmir, with donations pouring in and other cities dispatching rescue workers to help in the relief effort. But it has also highlighted the country’s political divisions.  

Opposition politicians have underscored what they have criticised as shoddy construction fuelled by cheap credit and lax architectural standards.  But pro-government voices supportive of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party have praised the response relief workers and disaster management officials.

Still, even pro-government outlets called for a reassessment of the process by which shoddy buildings are approved.  

The government “should be tough against those who take the process [of tearing down faulty buildings] slowly, those who do not construct safe buildings, and those who approve faulty buildings,” said a commentary in the stridently pro-government Star newspaper. “It is obvious that multiple mistakes were made in the buildings that killed victims.”

Coming at a time of heightened tensions between Turkey and several other countries over disputes in the Middle East, North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Caucasus, the earthquake has also brought a rare moment of solidarity between Ankara and other nations.  

But even the expressions of support, sympathy and gratitude have not been without controversy.  

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Mr Erdogan posted a tweet thanking nations offering support along with their flags, including that of Taiwan. He later deleted the tweet and reposted it without the flag of Taiwan, which is not recognised by mainland China as a separate nation.  

“According to information obtained by our representative office in Turkey, it was due to China's meddling and pressure,” foreign minister Joseph Wu told reporters in Taipei, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.