Bangladesh team rescues one alive, recovers 12 bodies so far in Turkey

A joint rescue team of Bangladesh continues to play its part in the rescue effort in Turkey for the fourth day following last Monday's earthquake, one of the deadliest natural disasters ever to hit the region.

The Bangladesh team has so far wrested a 17-year-old girl from the rubble and recovered 12 bodies, Shahjahan Sikder, deputy assistant director of the fire service headquarters media cell, said Monday.

The rescuers were among thousands of local and overseas teams, including Turkish coal miners and experts aided by sniffer dogs and thermal cameras, who scoured pulverized apartment blocks for signs of life, according to UNB.

The Bangladesh team consisting of 34 members from the army and 12 from the fire service left Dhaka Wednesday at 10pm and reached Turkey's Adana Military Air Base Thursday at 9:46pm.

Later, they reached the Adiyaman city in southeastern Turkey and started search and rescue operations, Shahjahan said.

The quake and hundreds of aftershocks, some nearly as powerful as the first, struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, killing more than 35,000 and reducing whole swaths of towns and cities inhabited by millions to fragments of concrete and twisted metal, reported AP Monday.