Girl walks free from rubble

Published October 13, 2005

MUZAFFARABAD, Oct 12: A five-year-old girl on Wednesday crawled free from a crumpled building here as desperate locals, who did not know she was there, dug for survivors.

Relatives said Larif Hussein crawled from the rubble by herself, wearing the red dress she had on when the quake struck on Saturday.

“We thought there were some other people buried in the rubble so we made a hole, and then my niece crawled out by herself,” said her uncle, Ahmed Jalil.

“She’s very tired but she’s conscious. This is a miracle for us,” he added as he carried the girl to a waiting ambulance.

Meanwhile, Turkish rescuers on Wednesday saved a 45-year-old mother-of-three from the rubble of her home here, 105 hours after it collapsed in the massive South Asian earthquake, an AFP reporter said.

Rashida Farooq, 45, was pulled to safety amid cheers from a crowd of about 100 locals who had watched the drama unfold over five hours.

Her husband, Mahmood Farooq Marchal, 48, a shopkeeper, was elated.

“I’m so happy because my life-partner is coming back to me and now we can start a whole new life together. Thank you, thank you, thank you Turkey,” he said.

ELDERLY MAN RESCUED: Rain, which brought misery to victims of Pakistan’s earthquake, saved the life of an elderly man rescued alive from the rubble after 80 hours, a rescuer said on Wednesday.

The man, in his 70s, survived by drinking rain water that seeped through into the debris of a three-storey building in which he was trapped, said a member of a British team that pulled him out late on Tuesday in Muzaffarabad.—Agencies

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