A baby girl born under the rubble of her family’s earthquake-hit home in Syria has left hospital to start a new life with her aunt and uncle - as fresh tremors in the region left more people trapped.
The infant was still connected by umbilical cord to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was dead along with her husband and four other children, when she was rescued in the town of Jindayris 10 hours after the 7.8-magnitude quake hit.
Staff at the hospital where she was taken named her Aya - Arabic for “a sign from God” - as her tragic story made headlines around the world.
She was discharged on Saturday and her paternal aunt and uncle have adopted her and gave her a new name, Afraa, after her late mother.
“She is one of my children now. I will not differentiate between her and my children,” her uncle, Khalil al-Sawadi, said on Monday.
Mr al-Sawadi and his wife are living with relatives after his home was also destroyed in two huge earthquakes which struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, followed by multiple aftershocks, killing more than 47,000 people.
The region was hit by a fresh 6.4 magnitude quake yesterday, claiming several more lives and injuring hundreds as buildings already damaged by the earlier tremors collapsed.
The quake was centred near the southern Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.
As of this morning, six people were reported to have died in the latest earthquake with about 300 injured.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said there had been 90 aftershocks. Six thousand tents were sent to the area overnight for residents affected by the new quake.
The Hatay provincial governor’s building, already damaged in the February 6 quakes, collapsed in the latest tremor, TV footage showed.
CNN Turk showed a rescue team climbing a ladder to enter one building where some people had been trapped after the latest tremor. It said the quake struck while people were in the already damaged building to retrieve possessions before it was demolished.
Muna Al Omar said she was in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the ground started heaving again.
“I thought the earth was going to split open under my feet,” she said, crying as she held her seven-year-old son in her arms.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Turkey yesterday that Washington would help “for as long as it takes” as rescue operations in the wake of the initial earthquakes wound down, with the focus turning towards shelter and reconstruction work.
