The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria two weeks ago has passed 46,000 and is rising every day. In Turkey, about 2 lakh 64 thousand apartments were damaged, making it a huge challenge for rescuers to find people and other animals trapped under the rubble. Still, they are doing all they can, and many photos and videos shared on social media show incredible scenes of people and animals being rescued.

Recently a local firefighter rescued a cat from the rubble in the Turkish city of Mardin. Remarkably, the cat has not left the man's side since.

On 16 February, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, shared a video on Twitter of the rescued cat and its rescuer. It shows the cat perched on the rescuer's shoulder, rubbing its face against his in affection. "A cat was saved from under the rubble in Turkey. It now refuses to leave its rescuer's side," he wrote.

Two days later Gerashchenko posted another photo showing the Turkish rescuer lying in bed with the cat leaning comfortably against him. In the caption he said the rescuer had taken the cat home as a pet.

"I posted yesterday about a cat saved from the rubble in Turkey who refused to leave his rescuer's side. The rescuer's name is Ali Cakas and he adopted the cat, naming him Enkaz - 'rubble' in Turkish. May they have a happy life together!" he wrote.

Gerashchenko's post went viral soon after it was shared. So far 2 lakh 14 thousand people have liked it, more than 20,000 have retweeted it and there have been nearly 1,500 comments.

One person wrote: "What a wonderful story. May Allah keep them both well." Another said: "Who wouldn't be happy to have a cat like this!" A third commented: "Probably the best story of the day!"

Citing NDTV.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.