More than 130 people have been pulled out alive from under wrecked buildings by rescue teams from around the world, although hopes of finding more survivors are fading daily.
September 28, 1985
Mexico: Two infants are found alive in the rubble in their cots, nine days after an earthquake that killed 5,000.
July 30, 1990
Philippines: Three people are found alive in the ruins of a hotel destroyed two weeks earlier in an earthquake, in which more than 2,600 died at Baguio, 400km to the north of Manila. They were able to survive thanks to the seepage of water.
August 23, 1999
Turkey: A team of rescue workers pulls a three-year-old child from the ruins, six days after a quake that hit the north-west of the country, killing at least 20,000 people.
September 26, 1999
Taiwan: After a quake which killed almost 2,500 people, two brothers are plucked from the ruins in which they had spent more than five days, surviving by eating rotten apples and drinking their urine.
February 5, 2001
India: Two victims of a devastating earthquake in the western state of Gujarat are found alive in the ruins of their house, 10 days after the catastrophe, which killed 25.000. Rescue workers also found several survivors five or six days after the quake, including a 102-year old woman and a 12-month-old baby.
January 7, 2004
Iran: A 56-year-old man is pulled alive from the ruins, 13 days after a quake which killed 31,000 at Bam in the south east. He dies several days later. Four days earlier a 97- year-old woman had also been rescued.
January 6, 2005
Indonesia: A 70-year-old man survives for 11 days on Sumatra island having been stuck in the ruins of his house, which had been destroyed by the tsunami which killed more than 220,000.
December 12, 2005
Pakistan: A 40-year-old woman is pulled alive from the wreckage of her house in Kashmir, two months after a quake ravaged the region killing 75,000. She survived by eating rotten food and drinking drops of rain water.
May 21, 2008
China: A woman is found, trapped in a tunnel under a water power plant, nine days after a quake which ravaged Sichuan killing almost 87,000.