ANKARA 

Crawling through the debris, an old man in southern Türkiye managed to rescue his wife from what remained of their home that collapsed in the wake of last month's powerful earthquakes.

Mahmut, 83, and 79-year-old Fatma Kundakci were brought to the capital Ankara with the help of relatives and donors after the twin back-to-back earthquakes leveled their house in the province of Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the tremors.

After saving his wife of 65 years, Mahmut stayed by her side as she received treatment at a hospital in Ankara for her health problems.

"I woke up and the house was rumbling. I saw my husband reciting the shahada, then I started to say the shahada. We ran to the door to get out, we got out at the last moment," Fatma said as she recounted their escape to Anadolu. The shahada is a testimony of faith in Islam that Muslims are encouraged to recite before death.

Their house survived the first earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.7, but crumbled in the second, which measured 7.6.

Due to her shock, Fatma couldn't recall just what happened during the second earthquake that came less than 10 hours after the first, except that tremors were very frightening.

"I would've died if it hadn't been for Mahmut when the second tremor hit. He grabbed me by the hand and saved me amid that rumbling. I love him so much for Allah's sake," she said.

With tears in his eyes, Mahmut recalled his alarm as the second earthquake brought their home down while Fatma was still inside.

"At about noon, I was about to go into the house. Just as I opened the iron door, there was a rumble ... The house seemed to tilt and straighten up again. My son had come, he picked me up and pulled me back.

"I said: 'Let me go, my wife's inside. If I die, I die. I can't go without her'," the elderly man said he told his son.

As she fled the shaking dwelling, Fatma had made it to the doorstep when it collapsed on her.

"I couldn't lift her and get her out, but I crawled in, grabbed her hand, and pulled her out," Mahmut said.

Having to stay outside in the winter cold for three days amid the frequent aftershocks, the couple were then brought to Ankara to tend to Fatma's health concerns.

Now a month since that ordeal Mahmut is happy to say his beloved wife's treatment is going well. "We've been married 65 years. We have six kids. I'm a laborer, that's how I educated and raised my six children.

"Now, our kids are rushing (to our needs). My wife Fatma means more to me than my life."

Some 13.5 million people in Türkiye have been affected by the devastating quakes that struck on Feb. 6 in the country's south, with thousands of buildings collapsing in its wake.

More than 45,000 people died in the earthquakes, which heavily affected 11 provinces — Hatay, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakir, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Osmaniye, Sanliurfa, and Elazig.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz.