A Turkish teen filmed the “last moments” of an earthquake-stricken apartment

ADIYAMAN, Turkey (AP) — A 17-year-old high school student captured the hearts of Turks after he filmed a farewell message to his loved ones while he was trapped under the rubble of his home during last week’s earthquake.

Taha Erdem and his family were fast asleep when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck their hometown of Adiyaman in the early hours of February 6.

Taha was suddenly awakened by violent tremors that shook the four-storey building in a blue-collar neighborhood in central Anatolia.

Within 10 seconds, Taha, his mother, father, younger brother and sister were coming down the building.

Alone, he found himself trapped under tons of rubble, with waves of powerful aftershocks moving the rubble, compressing his space amidst a warped mess of concrete and twisted steel. Taha took out his mobile phone and began recording a final farewell, hoping to be discovered after his death.

“I guess this is the last video I will take for you,” he said from the cramped space, his phone trembling in his hand as tremors rocked the collapsed building.

He displayed remarkable resilience and courage for a teenager who believed he was speaking his last words, recounting his injuries and talking about his regrets and the things he hopes to do if he gets out alive. During the video, the cries of other trapped people can be heard.

“We tremble still. Death, my friends, comes at a time when one least expects it.” Taha says before reading the Muslim prayer in Arabic.

There are many things I regret. God forgive me all my sins. If I get out of here alive today, there are many things I want to do. We’re still shivering, yeah. My hands aren’t shaking, it’s just an earthquake.”

The teen continues to recount that he believes his family is dead, along with many others in town, and that he will soon join them.

But Taha was destined to be among the first to be rescued from the destroyed building. Neighbors pulled him out of the rubble two hours later and took him to an aunt’s house.

Ten hours after the earthquake, his parents and siblings were rescued by local residents who dug through the building’s wreckage with their bare hands and whatever tools they could find.

When the Associated Press spoke to the family Thursday they were living in a tent provided by the government, along with hundreds of thousands of others who had survived the disaster that has struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, killing more than 43,000 people.

“This is my home,” said Zuleiha, the mother of Taha, 37, as she watched diggers dig up their old lives and dump them into heavy trucks.

“Boom boom boom, the building fell floor by floor on top of us,” she recalls, describing how she kept screaming her son’s name while trapped in the rubble hoping all five of the family would die together.

Erdems’ youngest children – 13-year-old daughter Semanur, and 9-year-old son Yigit Cinar – were sleeping in their parents’ room when the earthquake struck.

But Taha couldn’t hear his mother’s calls through the block of concrete. Nor could she hear her son’s cries in the dark, and both thought the other was dead in the destroyed building.

Only when Zuleiha, her husband, Ali (47), a hospital cleaner, and the other children were taken to her sister’s house, did they realize that Taha had survived.

“The world was mine at that moment,” said Zuleiha. “I don’t have anything, but I do have my kids.”

The story of the Erdem family is one of many emotional tales of human fortitude to emerge from the region of pervasive disaster. Many vividly recount the horrors of those trapped under their homes.

Ibrahim Zakaria, a 23-year-old Syrian who was rescued in the Syrian coastal town of Jableh on Feb. 10, told The Associated Press that he survived by licking water dripping from the wall next to him, causing him to slip, lose consciousness, and pass out. Hope to stay in his waking moments.

“I almost gave up because I thought I was going to die,” he said from his hospital bed. “No way,” I thought.

In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, 17-year-old Adnan Mehmet Korkut was trapped for four days before he was rescued. He told the private IHA news agency that he became so thirsty that he drank his own urine.

Mehmet Enes Yeninar, 17, and his 21-year-old brother were rescued after 198 hours in nearby Kahramanmaras.

He said they cried for the first two days, mostly wondering about their mother and if she had survived, the IHA reported. They later start calming each other down — “brother talk” and eating protein powder.

Also in Kahramanmaras, Elin Olmez, 17, was pulled from the rubble after 248 hours. “I tried to pass the time on my own,” she said.

Remarkable survival stories often emerge during disasters, especially after earthquakes, when the world’s media chronicle the fading hope of survivor recovery with each passing hour.

In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a 16-year-old girl was rescued in Port-au-Prince 15 days after the earthquake devastated the city. Three years later, a woman trapped under a collapsed building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was rescued after 17 days.

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Badendik reported from Istanbul.

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