Firefighters, volunteers and rescuers were continuing Monday efforts to get to dozens of possible survivors trapped under tons of debris and rubble following a magnitude 7.0 earthquake near Turkey's western city of Izmir.
Early Monday morning, the fourth day of the rescue efforts, volunteers were able to find a 3-year-old girl still alive. Turkish state news media said that the girl had been trapped under the rubble for around 65 hours before she was rescued. The girl's mother was rescued a few hours earlier but one of her siblings had died.
Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said it was continuing to search the destroyed buildings as reports of missing families are still coming in from those that had survived. Aftershocks continued to rock the city and its neighboring regions throughout the weekend. This made rescue operations dangerous.
The earthquake, which hit near the city late Friday, collapsed several buildings and other structures.
Local authorities said families and volunteers gathered Sunday to help rescuers sift through the rumble. At least eight separate apartment blocks had collapsed shortly after the earthquake with dozens more severely damaged.
According to local agencies, at least 64 people were killed after the earthquake hit the coastal province near the Aegean Sea. More than 900 others were injured and hundreds remain missing.
Turkey's environment and urbanization minister said that it had rescued around 100 people from destroyed buildings over the weekend. The country's Disaster and Relief Agency said it had dispatched all available personnel to help. These included a combined 5,700 personnel from the country's local governments, police, state agencies and civil society groups.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of the earthquake was about 10 miles off the coast of Turkey in the Aegean Sea. The tremor reportedly caused small tsunamis which hit coastal cities and towns.
While Izmir suffered the most damage, deaths caused by the quake have been reported in neighboring countries. Two teenagers were reportedly killed in Greece's Samos Island following the quake.
