Dad of NYC family killed in Turkey earthquake dug for 12 hours

The father of the Queens man killed alongside his family in the devastating earthquake in Turkey had helplessly watched the building collapse on them — then “spent over 12 hours digging” through the rubble in a desperate bid to save them despite recently having open-heart surgery, a relative revealed Friday.

Corona-based dad Burak Firik, 35, died alongside his wife, Kimberly, 32, their two sons, Hamza, 2, and Bilal, 1, and his mother during Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 22,000 people.

The family had gone to Elbistan to support Firik’s father with his recent major heart procedure, Kimberly Firik’s sister, Salma Salazar, told CNN in a harrowing interview Friday.

But the recovering dad “was the only survivor,” she said of the overwhelming loss that has left her family “broken.”

“He basically saw his building collapse before his own eyes, and he couldn’t do anything,” Salazar said of the five-story apartment block.

“He spent over 12 hours digging, and just finding people to help him dig, because the machines weren’t able to go in,” Salazar told CNN of the heroic efforts of her brother-in-law’s dad.

It was not immediately clear when or how the five relatives’ bodies were found.

But at some point, Firik’s dad called his relatives in the Big Apple to say “they’re gone, they’re gone — they left,” Salazar said.

“We’re all very broken in my family … our hearts are broken,” Salazar told CNN.

She became overwhelmed when asked about her toddler nephews, finally answering after wiping away tears: “There are no words I can describe how my family’s feeling — they were taken away so soon.

“They were just children … we’ve lost all our hope.”

She remembered her late sister as “very graceful” and “very lovable.”

“She was very passionate about everything that she did, and she certainly put everyone’s needs above her own,” she said.

Her brother-in-law, a former board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations New York Chapter (CAIR-NY), was “very selfless” and “extremely intelligent,” she said.

“And all he wanted to do was help. Help the community,” Salazar told CNN of Firik.

The US State Department confirmed Thursday that “at least three US citizens” were killed in the quake. Salazar said her sister and two nephews were US citizens.

She called the rising death toll “really difficult to see” and proof that help is desperately needed.

“I want people to know that this is a big problem right now in Turkey and in Syria.

“And although I lost my family, there are currently still people under there. There are children,” she said.

The death toll in Turkey rose to 19,388 on Friday, while more than 3,300 have been killed in neighboring Syria.

That makes it the seventh-most deadly natural disaster this century, ahead of Japan’s 2011 tremor and tsunami and approaching the 31,000 killed by a quake in neighboring Iran in 2003.