Boy found unhurt in quake rubble

A 13-year-old boy was pulled from a collapsed building without injury yesterday, five days after Turkey's powerful earthquake struck.

He survived by drinking rain water that seeped through cracks in the rubble. The boy, Ferhat Tokay, used shoes for a pillow and peered through a tiny gap to see whether it was day or night outside, his uncle said.

Ferhat was discovered early yesterday morning, soon after rescue workers had sent relatives away from the site to get some rest, saying there was no chance of finding the boy alive.

"He didn't even have a scratch on him!" his uncle, Sahin Tokay, told NTV television. "He was hungry on the first day, but the hunger pangs later disappeared."

The 7.2-magnitude quake levelled about 2,000 buildings in eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 573 people and leaving about 2,500 injured and thousands homeless.

Another 5,700 buildings are said to be unfit for habitation.