Little boy sips water from a bottle cap as he is rescued as death toll hits 17,000
The death toll from twin earthquakes that battered southeast Turkey and northern Syria earlier this week has now surpassed 17,000, with the time left to find survivors running out.
More than 72 hours have passed since the quakes, and those still trapped under the rubble are thought to have little chance of survival, but each passing hour seems to bring another glimmer of hope as another child or family is rescued.
One agonizing video captured yesterday showed a young Syrian boy named Muhammed Ahmed putting on a brave face despite being stuck under debris for 45 hours.
Rescuers had managed to reach the child, whose face was covered in dust and scratches from the building’s collapse, but were unable to extract him from the concrete and he was beginning to fade due to dehydration and utter exhaustion.
Refusing to let the boy waste away, the rescuers poured water into a bottle cap and slid it through a gap in the debris. Muhammed sipped the fluid down and despite his awful predicament flashed a little smile back up at his rescuers.
The touching moment between one desperate boy and his rescuers immediately went viral, and with good reason.
Rescuers fed a young Syrian boy water from a bottlecap through a gap in the debris. They later managed to free him after 45 hours of agony