Baby found alive under the rubble

Twenty-two hours after the massive earthquake that demolished buildings and killed more than 5,000 people in Nepal, a 4-month-old boy was rescued from the rubble. 

The boy, named Sonit Awal, was buried under the rubble of his family’s house in Bhaktapur, near Kathmandu, when it collapsed during Saturday’s earthquake.

According to a story in local newspaper Kathmandu Today, translated by The Guardian, rescuers tried until midnight to extract the baby from bricks and other debris that had fallen on him during the quake, but were unsuccessful.

Photo: Kathmandu Today.

The next morning, after the child’s father said he heard the baby crying throughout the night, the rescue team returned, and by 10 a.m. Sunday, it finally pulled the child to safety.

Sonit Awal was alive and, the paper reported, found free of injuries after a visit to Bhaktapur hospital. Bhaktapur was one of the areas hardest hit by the earthquake that, as of Wednesday, had killed more than 5,000 people in Nepal. 

Several rescue teams have been deployed to the densely-packed residential community — where mostly brick-and-wood houses and apartment buildings collapsed under the pressure — and they continue to pull survivors like Sonit from the wreckage.