Turkey : An unusually quiet parakeet’s tweets startled a Turkish family awake in time to flee their home minutes before the ground began to shake in Pazarcik, epicentre of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey before dawn on February 6.
“Half an hour before the earthquake, it made a strange noise at night, when the light was not on. It was flapping its wings and jumping from place to place in the cage,” Mustafa Cimen, 17, told state news agency Anadolu.
The noise woke the family from their sleep, so they were were able to race for the door once the tremors began.
“Thanks to the bird, we were not caught asleep by the earthquake,” Mustafa said.
The family bought the baby parakeet, Mavis, three months ago, and she had not sung much until then, he said.
