Jordanian mother Israa Raed said she was indescribably happy on Thursday after rescue workers rescued her four-month-old daughter Malak from the rubble of a collapsed building in the capital Amman.
“I knew it was her by her pink pajamas,” Israa Raed, 26, told AFP after waiting more than 24 hours for news of her only daughter.
“Words cannot describe how happy I am,” she said. “I thank God she’s safe.”
Hundreds of rescuers have searched the site of the four-story apartment building in Jabal al-Weibdeh, one of Amman’s oldest neighborhoods, since it toppled on Tuesday.
At least 10 people were killed, authorities said, but the survival of Malak – “Angel” in English – heralded some relief for many Jordanians watching the disaster.
Video footage shared by the civil defense service shows rescue workers rescuing the little girl from a narrow gap in the rubble on Wednesday. She suffered only minor bruises.
“The doctor said it was a miracle for my daughter to get out safely from under the ruins of a four-story building,” said the mother, who was standing in front of the Luzmila hospital where Malak was under surveillance.
“I had a gut feeling that she was alive and my husband had assured me that she was waiting for us.”
Raed, who sells perfume and makeup, said she left her only daughter with a friend who lived in the building’s basement so she could deliver an order.
“I don’t live there. My girlfriend lives there and I left my little girl with her.”
– A scream from the rubble –
“After about an hour, I got a call saying my daughter had fallen,” she recalls. “I started running like crazy. I thought she might have fallen out of her bed, but when I got there I saw the whole building collapse on my daughter.”
“I started screaming, ‘Where’s my girl? Where’s my girl?'”
A little over 24 hours later, “emergency workers told me they heard a little girl scream,” she said.
Hussam Abboud, a 50-year-old rescue worker, said that “it was a divine miracle” that Malak got out alive.
She wasn’t seriously injured in the collapse itself, and “a small hole” in the concrete allowed her to continue breathing, Raed said.
But she said that alongside her joy at baby Malak’s survival, she also felt sadness because her friend – and that friend’s own infant daughter – did not make it out alive.
Another mother who was grocery shopping when the building collapsed lost her three children, ages 17, 12 and 9.
A 45-year-old man was rescued from under the rubble on Wednesday, and defense sources initially said others may have been trapped there.
“I was hoping we would get the rest out safely,” said Wissam Ziyadin, a 42-year-old rescue worker, as prospects of getting more people out alive faded.
Jordan’s prosecutor Hassan al-Abdallat ordered the arrest of three people, the state news agency Petra reported.
The trio were told to the building manager, as well as two other people involved in maintenance work that should have been done to the structure, Petra added.
