A baby began her life surrounded by chaos and devastation this week.
Reportedly named Aya – meaning ‘miracle’ in Arabic – she was born under the rubble of Monday’s deadly earthquake, still attached to her mother’s lifeless body by the umbilical cord when rescue workers found her.
Her story certainly seems miraculous, as she survived for more than 10 hours under the wreckage of her family’s five-story apartment building in northern Syria after it was leveled to the ground during the pre-dawn 7.8 magnitude quake.
“We heard a voice while we were digging,” the baby’s cousin, Khalil al-Suwadi told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday. “We cleared the dust and found the baby with the umbilical cord (intact), so we cut it and my cousin took her to hospital.”
Tragically, the baby’s mother did not survive and is thought to have died hours after giving birth. In fact, the newborn is believed to be the sole survivor of her immediate family, her cousin told the news agency.