Safe and alive under ruins after 39 hours of quake

Christian Lantonnet of Pompiers sans Frontieres, or Firefighters Without Borders, said the woman was pulled out after his team found her while searching through ruins where other survivors said someone might be buried.

"We succeeded to rescue from the rubble of a house, a victim alive at around 2:00 pm," Lantonnet told AFP.

The 8.7-magnitude quake struck shortly after 11pm on Monday, causing major damage on Nias and other nearby islands off the coast of Sumatra, and leaving hundreds dead.

"She was very weak and was rushed to the hospital," he said.

Lantonnet said his five-man team had arrived on the island on Tuesday, flying in from nearby Aceh province where they had been helping survivors of the December 26 tsunami, which caused massive damage there.

He said a second team was expected to arrive on Thursday with sniffer dogs to search for people still buried.