Türkiye teen wins hearts after filming 'last moments' under quake debris

A 17-year-old high school student has captured Turkish hearts after he filmed a farewell message to his loved ones as he was trapped under the rubble of his home during last week's earthquakes.

Taha Erdem and his family were fast asleep when the first 7.7 magnitude quake hit their hometown of Adiyaman in the early hours of February 6.

Taha was abruptly woken by violent tremors shaking the four-story apartment building in a blue-collar neighbourhood of the central Anatolian city.

Within 10 seconds, Taha, his mother, father and younger brother and sister were plunging downward with the building.

He found himself alone and trapped under tons of rubble, with waves of powerful aftershocks shifting the debris, squeezing his space amid the mangled mess of concrete and twisted steel. 

Taha took out his cellphone and began recording a final goodbye, hoping it would be discovered after his death.

"I think this is the last video I will ever shoot for you," he said from the tight space, his phone shaking in his hand as tremors rocked the collapsed building.

Showing remarkable resilience and bravery for a teenager believing he was speaking his last words, he lists his injuries and speaks of his regrets and the things he hopes to do if he emerges alive. 

During the video, the screams of other trapped people can be heard.

"We are still shaking. Death, my friends, comes at a time when one is least expecting it." says Taha, before reciting a Muslim prayer in Arabic.

"There are many things that I regret. May God forgive me of all my sins. If I get out of here alive today there are many things that I want to do. We are still shaking, yes. My hand isn't shaking, it's just the earthquake."

READ MORE: 'It slid down 30 metres': Türkiye quakes bisect Demirkopru village

'The world was mine at that moment'

The teen goes on to recount that he believes his family are dead, along with many others in the city, and that he will soon join them.

But Taha was destined to be among some of the first saved from the destroyed building. He was pulled from the rubble two hours later by neighbours and taken to an aunt's home.

Ten hours after the quake, his parents and siblings were also saved by local residents who dug at the wreck of the building with their bare hands and whatever tools they could find.

When The Associated Press spoke to the family on Thursday they were living in AFAD-provided tent, along with hundreds of thousands of others who survived the disaster that hit southeastern Türkiye and north Syria, killing more than 46,000. 

"This is my home," said Taha's mother Zeliha, 37, as she watched excavators digging up their old life and dumping it into heavy trucks.

"Boom-boom-boom, the building went down floor by floor on top of us," she recalled, describing how she had kept yelling her son's name while trapped under the debris in the hope that all five of them could die together as a family.

The Erdems' younger children — daughter Semanur, 13, and 9-year-old son Yigit Cinar — were sleeping in their parents' room when the quake hit.

But Taha could not hear his mother's calls through the mass of concrete. Nor could she hear her son’s cries in the dark, and both believed the other was lying dead in the destroyed building.

It was only when Zeliha, her husband Ali, 47, a hospital cleaner, and the other children were taken to her sister's home that they realised Taha had survived.

"The world was mine at that moment," Zeliha said. "I have nothing, but I have my kids."

The story of the Erdem family is one of many emotional tales of human fortitude to emerge from the widespread disaster area. 

READ MORE: 'Please find a piece of her': Prayers to find bodies under quake debris