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Members of the Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (SMART) were in disbelief and shock when they discovered and rescued five members of a family who were trapped under the rubble of their residential building on Saturday.

The family of five were trapped for the past six days after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit southern Turkiye and northwestern Syria on Monday.

According to Malay Mail, SMART MAS-01 search and rescue operations officer (SAR) Inspector Muhamad Zul Khairi Idris said the team cried ‘takbir’ (Allahuakbar) when they pulled out the first victim – a teenage boy – at 1.20pm (6.20pm Malaysian time).

The touching moment almost brought the whole team to tears but they kept their feelings in check in order to complete the rescue mission.

The remaining family members were successfully extricated from under the rubble by 2.20pm (7.20pm MYT) in safe condition before being looked at by the local medical team.

The five victims were the first to be found safe by the national SAR team since being deployed there.

So far, the team had brought out 25 bodies and five survivors.

How did it happen?

Muhamad Zul Khairi said his team of 24 members and a tracking dog named Frankie searched a new area at 11am (4pm MYT).

The search was carried out following information from the reconnaissance team about 1.3km from the national rescue team camp at Nurdagi Stadium.

A local team on the ground heard a sound coming from under the rubble at 1pm (6pm MYT).

The Malaysian rescue team then used the Life Detector Six Sensor System and Victim Simulator (Delsar) equipment to locate the victims and found out that the victims were trapped two metres under the rubble.

The team initially expected there to be three victims. After communicating through the Delsar equipment, the victims said five of them were trapped in a room.

The rescue team dug up and removed obstacles in the frigid “one degree Celcius” weather to get all victims out safely.

Muhamad Zul Khairi and his team used special tools to cut the entangled concrete irons and used load-bearing struts to open a tunnel-like gap to allow the evacuation of victims.

The large earthquake on Monday claimed thousands of lives with aftershocks being felt in Cyprus and Lebanon.

The death toll from the large earthquake in southern Turkiye has risen to at least 7,108 people while over 40,000 are reported injured.

To ensure a smooth SAR operation, Turkiye on Tuesday declared a three-month state of emergency in 10 provinces.

The affected provinces are:

  • Adana
  • Adiyaman
  • Diyarbakir
  • Gaziantep
  • Hatay
  • Kahramanmaras
  • Kilis
  • Malatya
  • Osmaniye
  • Sanliurfa

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