Two girls rescued from rubble three days after Turkey quake

Death toll rises to 85 but the duo, 14 and 3, were among more than 100 to be rescued

A three-year-old was one of two girls rescued from collapsed buildings in the Turkish city of Izmir on Monday, three days after a powerful earthquake hit Turkey and Greece.

The death toll in Friday's quake reached 85 after teams found more bodies overnight amid toppled buildings in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city.

Rescue workers clapped as 14-year-old Idil Sirin was removed from the rubble, after being trapped for 58 hours. Her 8-year-old sister, Ipek, did not survive, NTV television reported.

Seven hours later, rescuers working on another toppled building extricated three-year-old Elif Perincek, whose mother and two sisters had been rescued two days earlier. The child spent 65 hours in the wreckage of her apartment and became the 106th person to be pulled out alive, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Three-year-old Elif Perincek holds on to the thumb her rescuer as she is carried out of a collapsed building in Izmir, Turkey, that collapsed in an earthquake three days earlier. Istanbul Fire Department / AFP

Muammer Celik of the Istanbul fire department's search-and-rescue team told NTV television that he thought Elif was dead when he reached her inside the wreckage.

“There was dust on her face, her face was white,” he said. “When I cleaned the dust from her face, she opened her eyes. I was astonished.

“It was a miracle, it was a true miracle.”

The girl would not let go of his hand throughout the rescue operation, Mr Celik said, adding: “I am now her big brother.”

The girl was pictured holding Celik's thumb while being carried on a stretcher into a tent where she was treated before being taken to hospital. Rescuers were seen shedding tears of joy and hugging each other.

Muammer Celik, the fireman who found 3-year-old Elif Perincek alive in a collapsed building in Izmir, Turkey. Istanbul Fire Department / AFP

Close to 1,000 people were injured, mostly in Turkey, by the quake that was centred in the Aegean Sea north-east of the Greek island of Samos. It killed two teenagers on Samos and injured at least 19 people on the island.

There was some debate over the quake's magnitude. The US Geological Survey rated it 7, while Istanbul’s Kandilli Institute put it at 6.9 and Turkey’s emergency management agency said it measured 6.6.

Officials said 220 quake survivors were still being treated in hospitals and four of them were in serious condition.

The quake triggered a small tsunami that hit Samos and the Seferihisar district of Izmir, drowning one elderly woman. The tremors were felt across western Turkey, including in Istanbul as well as in the Greek capital of Athens. Hundreds of aftershocks followed.

Turkey has a mix of older buildings and cheap or illegal construction, which can lead to serious damage and deaths when earthquakes hit. Regulations have been tightened in light of earthquakes to strengthen or demolish older buildings and urban renewal is under way in Turkish cities, but it is not happening fast enough.

Turkey sits on top of fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. In 1999, two powerful quakes killed about 18,000 people in Turkey's north-west . Earthquakes are frequent in Greece as well.