Last month a devastating, 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, leaving at least 50,000 people dead. In the weeks since, search and rescue crews have been hard at work searching for survivors.
And in one uplifting story, a group of unlikely survivors were pulled from the rubble a nearly a month after the earthquake: a dog and her three newborn puppies.
According to Reuters, Kadir Keyifli asked rescuers to save his dog Sila, a 2-and-a-half-year-old Doberman, from the rubble in Hatay, Turkey.
Rescue teams were unable to enter the wreckage, but finally on Monday the local rescue team Meyako was able to go in and search for the dog.
Video shows the moment the rescuers broke through a wall and found Sila in the basement, thankfully still alive after 28 days.
But they got an even bigger surprise when they realized Sila was not alone: while trapped in the rubble, the dog had given birth to three puppies!
The rescue team was stunned, and one of the responders wonders aloud what the dog ate and drank all this time.
According to Reuters, Keyifli said the dogs likely survived off a big bag of dog food that was left in the basement. The mother dog had lost weight but otherwise appeared unharmed, and all the dogs were taken in for treatment.
“My dogs are coming out after one month. Thank God,” Keyifli said.
It’s a miraculous story, but Sila and her puppies aren’t the only unlikely animal survivors in the disaster: a Husky dog named Aleks was also pulled from the rubble 22 days after the earthquakes.
The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria were a heartbreaking tragedy and the death toll is unimaginable, but stories like these can give people a glimmer of hope in the wake of this disaster.
What a miracle. We’re so glad that Sila and her puppies survived and were rescued after all this time ❤️
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