VOA慢速英语--地震四天后,土耳其救援人员从废墟中救出一名女孩

Rescuers in the Turkish city of Izmir have pulled a young girl out alive from the remains¹ of a collapsed³ housing complex.

The rescue came Tuesday, four days after a strong earthquake hit Turkey and Greece and as people were losing hope of reaching survivors⁴. The girl was taken to a hospital in an emergency vehicle. Sounds of cheering and shouts of "God is great!" could be heard from rescue workers and people watching nearby.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca identified the girl on Twitter as 3-year-old Ayda Gezgin. The child had been trapped inside the rubble⁵ for 91 hours. She was the 107th person to have been rescued from collapsed buildings since Friday, the day the quake struck.

After her rescue, Ayda could be heard calling out for her mother in a video that played on television. But Ayda's mother did not survive. Her body was found in the rubble hours later. Ayda's brother and father were not inside the building at the time of the quake.

Rescuer Nusret Aksoy told reporters he was searching through the wreckage⁶ of the building when he heard a child's scream. He then called for silence. He later found the girl in a small space next to a dishwasher. The girl waved at him, told him her name and said that she was okay, Aksoy said. "I got goose bumps and my colleague Ahmet cried," he told HaberTurk television.

Ibrahim Topal, of the Humanitarian⁷ Relief Foundation said: "My colleague and I looked at each other like ‘Did you hear that, too?' We listened again. There was a very weak voice saying something like ‘I'm here.' Then we shut everything down, the machines, and started listening again. And there really was a voice."

Health ministry⁸ officials said the girl was in good condition but would be kept under observation in the hospital. She asked for a special meal of meatballs and a yogurt drink on her way to the hospital, the state-operated Anadolu Agency reported.

Another 3-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl were also pulled out alive recently from collapsed buildings in Izmir, Turkey's third-largest city. At least 111 people died in the quake. Officials said 138 survivors were still hospitalized.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the earthquake's strength at magnitude 7.0. Other agencies have recorded a smaller number.

Most of the deaths and about 1,000 injuries happened in Izmir. Two people died and 19 people were injured on the Greek island of Samos, near the quake's center in the Aegean Sea.

The quake also caused a small tsunami⁹ that hit Samos and an area of Izmir province, where one woman drowned. The shaking was felt across western Turkey, including in Istanbul, as well as in Athens, Greece. Hundreds of aftershocks followed.

The quake brought down many buildings in Izmir. Officials detained nine people, including builders, for questioning over the collapse² of six buildings. Turkey has a mix of older buildings and low-quality or illegally built structures that easily collapse in earthquakes.

Words in This Story

rubble –n. broken pieces of stone, brick from walls or buildings that have fallen apart

goose bumps –n. (pl.) small bumps on the skin caused by cold, fear or a sudden feeling of excitement

colleague –n. a person who works with you, fellow worker

yogurt –n. a food made from milk

aftershock –n. a small earthquake that happens after a larger one

1 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

2 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

3 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

4 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

5 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

6 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

7 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

8 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

9 tsunami   

n.海啸

参考例句：

• Powerful quake sparks tsunami warning in Japan.大地震触发了日本的海啸预警。
• Coastlines all around the Indian Ocean inundated by a huge tsunami.大海啸把印度洋沿岸地区都淹没了。