Aleks, a bright-eyed dog, is no ordinary miracle worker. He was found 23 days after the earthquake that destroyed Antakya, a large city in southern Turkey. The dog was trapped under concrete slabs that collapsed into a pit after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that occurred shortly after 4 a.m. on February 6. The images of his rescue, broadcast by the Turkish news agency DHA, show the difficulty of the operation.
Murat Arici, the dog's owner, was alerted by his pet's cries and quickly informed the rescue team in the municipality of Konya, in central Turkey. In the video of the rescue, the rescuers can be heard calling the dog "Aleks" and encouraging him to free himself. After a difficult operation, rescuers finally managed to save the large dog, who appeared to be healthy despite his shaggy appearance. Aleks was then handed over to the Haytap animal welfare association for a medical examination before being released to his owner. The rescuers greeted their success with a shout of "Well done, son".
Several animals were rescued
Hundreds of animals, such as cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, cows and sheep, were rescued by rescue workers from devastated buildings in southern Turkey. Since then, searches have been officially suspended in nine of the eleven affected provinces, except for Hatay and Kahramanmaras, where the epicenter was located.
The earthquake, considered the worst disaster ever in modern Turkey, killed more than 45,000 people and more than 5,000 in neighboring Syria. It also devastated hundreds of thousands of buildings.
