Death toll reaches 37 in quake that hit Turkey, Greek island
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Thousands of rescue workers have been working to free survivors from the debris. Ozan Kose/ AFP

Thousands of rescue workers have been working to free survivors from the debris. Ozan Kose/ AFP

Three young children and their mother were rescued alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in western Turkey on Saturday, some 23 hours after a powerful earthquake in the Aegean Sea killed at least 37 people and injured more than 800 others.

The Friday afternoon quake that struck Turkey's Aegean coast and north of the Greek island of Samos registered a magnitude that Turkish authorities put at 6.6 while other seismology institutes said it measured 6.9. It toppled buildings in Izmir, Turkey's third-largest city, and triggered a small tsunami in the Seferihisar district and on the Greek island. Hundreds of aftershocks followed.

At least 35 people were killed in Izmir, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. Among them was an elderly woman who drowned in the tsunami. But rescue teams on Saturday made contact with 38-year old Seher Perincek and her four children — ages 3, 7 and 10-year-old twins — inside a fallen building in Izmir and cleared a corridor to bring them out.

One by one, the mother and three of her children were removed from the rubble as rescuers applauded or hugged. Efforts were still underway to rescue the remaining child, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The survivors, including 10-year-old Elzem Perincek, were moved into ambulances on stretchers.

"I'm fine; I was rescued because only one of my feet was pinned. That foot really hurt," she said.

More than 5,500 rescuers from different agencies and cities worked together to reach survivors, at times hushing the crowds to listen into the rubble with sensitive headphones and crawling through the cracks. A 65-year-old man was saved 26 hours after the quake.

Earlier Saturday, search-and-rescue teams working on eight collapsed buildings lifted teenager Inci Okan out of the rubble of a devastated eight-floor apartment building. Her dog, Fistik, or Pistachio, was also rescued, Turkish media reported.

(With input from agencies)