After waiting 36 hours in the bitter cold, two children who were trapped under the concrete remnants of their home in earthquake-stricken Syria have been rescued.
Following Monday’s terrible earthquake, the older sister, Maryam, is seen holding her younger brother’s head as they are both caught between the wreckage of their bed and a fallen concrete wall.
She can move her arm to shield her brother’s face from the massive dust clouds that are being ejected by the collection of collapsed buildings.
Maryam, a young woman from the Syrian town of Besnaya-Besineh, cries out in a low voice to her rescuers, “Get me out of here, I’ll do anything for you. I will be your servant,” she says, answering as a savior: “No, no.”
Later, his father told CNN that the young child’s name was Ilaf, which is an Islamic name that means “protection.”
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Mustafa Zuhair al-Sayed told the BBC that on Monday morning, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook neighboring Turkey when his wife and three children were sound asleep.
“We felt the ground shaking … and debris started falling on our heads, and we were under rubble for two days,” he said. “We went through a feeling, a feeling I hope no one has to feel.”
Al-Sayed claimed that while trapped beneath his home’s debris, his family recited verses from the Quran and prayed aloud for rescue.
“People heard us, and we were saved – me, my wife, and children. Thank God, we are all alive and we thank those who saved us, ”he said.
Locals could be seen cheering when Mariam and Ilaf were rescued from the debris while wrapped in blankets in the video. The young patients were brought to the hospital, where they are receiving care.
