The dog Aleks, a large mongrel with light eyes, was rescued from the ruins of Antakya 23 days after the earthquake that devastated this major city in southern Turkey, local press reported on Thursday.
Dog Aleks was trapped in concrete slabs that formed like a pit when it collapsed in the 7.8-magnitude quake just after 4am on February 6, according to pictures of the rescue released by Turkey’s DHA news agency became.
It was the dog’s owner, Murat Arici, who heard his complaint and warned a rescue team dispatched by Konya Municipality (centre).
“Aleks, come my dog,” rescuers say in the video.
“Well…well done son,” they blurt out before they can grab the big dog, shaggy but apparently healthy.
Aleks was placed in the good care of an Animal Welfare Society (Haytap) to be examined before being returned to his master.
Rescuers have rescued hundreds of cats, dogs, birds, rabbits and even cows and sheep trapped in destroyed buildings in southern Turkey.
The last survivors, a couple, were spotted in Antakya on February 18.
Since then, searches have been officially suspended in nine of the 11 affected provinces, with the exception of Hatay and Kahramanmaras, where the epicenter was located.
The earthquake, considered the worst disaster ever suffered in modern-day Turkey, killed more than 45,000 people and more than 5,000 others in neighboring Syria, and devastated hundreds of thousands of buildings.