UPDATE - Turkey: 3-year-old girl rescued 65 hours after quake

UPDATES WITH RESCUE WORKER’S REMARKS

By Ali Korkmaz, Haydar Toprakci, Yusuf Sahbaz, and Efsun Erbalaban Yilmaz

IZMIR, Turkey (AA) - A wounded three-year-old girl has been rescued Monday, days after a powerful magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Turkey's Aegean coast.

Elif Perincek was pulled from debris nearly 65 hours after the quake in the Bayrakli district of western Izmir province.

Elif was the 106th person to be rescued from the rubble and she was taken to hospital.

In a Twitter post, Mehmet Gulluoglu, the head of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), expressed pleasure over rescue of the little girl

About 23 hours after the quake, Elif’s mother Seher Dereli Perincek and her 10-year-old twin siblings Ezel and Elzem Perincek, as well as her seven-year-old brother Umut Perincek were pulled from rubble. However, Umut lost his life, while her mother and other two siblings are under treatment.

Speaking to reporters following the rescue operation for little Elif, firefighter Muammer Celik shared emotional moments, saying: “Elif grabbed my finger […] I cleaned her face from dust.”

Celik said he took her out together with one of his co-workers and added that Elif did not leave his finger until they reached the first aid tent.

"That child deserves to live to the end," he said.

As firefighters, he said, they never lose hope "until the very last moment".

"We never lost hope for Elif, as well."

Turkey is among the world's most seismically active zones as it is situated on several active fault lines. It has suffered devastating earthquakes in the past as well.

*Writing by Sena Guler in Ankara