Rescuers have pulled a man alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Venezuela after he spent eight days trapped under 140 tonnes of concrete following the devastating twin earthquakes on June 24.
Hernan Alberto Gil Flores, a security guard at a local multi-story shopping mall, was in the basement when the earthquakes — the first measuring 7.2 and the second 7.5 in magnitude — brought the entire structure down. More than 2,500 people were killed in the disasters.
Miniar Collado, a member of the Costa Rican rescue team, told media: “When we pulled Gil out, he kept saying in a faint voice, ‘Don’t tell my wife I’m alive.'” Collado said rescuers were stunned by the request. When asked why, Gil replied: “I’m alive right now, but there’s no certainty how long I’ll live. So it’s better not to tell my wife.” The news, however, reached his wife Gusbiman Gonzalez.
Gil said: “At one point, I thought the rescuers might never reach me. No one could have known I was trapped here. By God’s grace, I survived.”
It took rescuers more than 100 hours to extract him from the wreckage after locating signs of life under the debris.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report