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Two week old baby rescued after Turkish quake

ERCIS, Turkey (AP) — A two-week-old baby girl, her mother and grandmother were pulled alive from the rubble of an apartment building in a dramatic rescue Tuesday, 48 hours after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake toppled some 2,000 buildings in eastern Turkey.

Television footage showed a rescuer in an orange jumpsuit squeezing into the hulk of crushed concrete and metal to free the baby. The infant, named Azra Karaduman, was wrapped in a blanket and handed over to a medic amid a scrum of media and applauding emergency workers.

Authorities said the death toll had jumped to 432 as rescuers in Ercis and the provincial capital, Van, raced against time to free dozens of people trapped inside mounds of concrete, twisted steel and construction debris. At least nine people were rescued on Tuesday, although many more bodies were discovered.

Authorities have warned survivors in the mainly Kurdish area not to enter damaged buildings and thousands spent a second night outdoors in cars or tents in near-freezing conditions, afraid to return to their homes. Some 1,300 people were injured.

There was still no power or running water and aid distribution was disrupted as desperate people stopped trucks even before they entered Ercis. Aid workers said they were able to find emergency housing for only about half the people who needed it.

 

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