Woman pulled alive from rubble in Turkey on Monday as death toll exceeds 36,000

Rescuers in Turkey pulled out several people alive from collapsed buildings on Monday, a week after a major earthquake struck Turkey and Syria killing more than 36,000 people.

Rescuers were digging to reach a grandmother, mother and daughter from a single family, a week after the country's worst earthquake in modern history.

With hopes of finding many more survivors in the rubble fast fading, the combined official death toll in Turkey and neighbouring Syria from last Monday's 7.8 magnitude quake rose to over 36,000 and looked set to keep increasing.

The death toll across Syria and Turkey rose to 36,217 on Monday. In Turkey, 31,643 people were recorded dead, the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said. In the government-controlled portion of Syria, 1,414 people have died, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). The rebel-run Syrian Salvation Government’s Health Ministry reported 3,160 deaths.

It was the deadliest quake in Turkey since 1939.

Sibel Kaya, 40, was rescued in southern Gaziantep province, some 170 hours after the first of two quakes struck the region, the report said. Rescue workers in Kahramanmaras had also made contact with three survivors, believed to be a mother, daughter and baby, in the ruins of a building.

On Sunday, rescue teams from Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus pulled a man alive from a collapsed building in Turkey, about 160 hours after the quake struck, Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said.

“Rescue work to remove the man from the rubble lasted more than four hours,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging platform, alongside a video showing rescuers taking a man from rubble and carrying him away.

“The work was carried out at night with a risk to life coming from a possible collapse of structures.”

The quake is now the sixth most deadly natural disaster this century, behind the 2005 tremor that killed at least 73,000 in Pakistan.

A father and daughter, a toddler and a 10-year-old girl were among other survivors pulled from the ruins of collapsed buildings in Turkey on Sunday, but such scenes are becoming rare as the number of dead climbed relentlessly.