STANBUL, Turkey (AP) - With time running out to save thousands of people still missing under mountains of rubble, rescue workers worked frantically to pull out survivors today even as the death toll from western Turkey's worst recorded earthquake neared 7,000.

French, Israeli and Austrian rescue teams joined Turkish crews and civilians searching for loved ones in a massive effort to save the thousands of people trapped beneath the wreckage.

At least 6,866 people were killed and 33,022 injured, the government announced today.

In addition, some 35,000 people could be still buried under the rubble, U.N. deputy spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Amid the bleak news, there was some heartening word: a refinery blaze, set off by the quake in Izmit near the epicenter was brought under control.

And an 8-year-old boy was rescued in Izmit this morning by the Fairfax County, Va., Urban Search and Rescue Team, said Lt. Lorenzo Thrower, a spokesman for the team. Thrower said the team was also working to free a 27-year-old woman buried under 15 feet of rubble.

A German team with 11 sniffer dogs and a Kuwaiti team with supplies also arrived today at Istanbul's airport to beef up the relief efforts.

In the town of Yalova, one of the hardest hit areas, a 60-member French military rescue team freed Elmas Kizilkaya from the rubble of a seven-story building - without having to amputate her ankle, as had been feared. Earlier, the French team amputated a man's hand to extract him from the rubble.

In Derince, near the epicenter, a married couple was rescued nearly 40 hours after the quake shook them out of their bed, dropped them several floors and brought the bed to rest just above them.

They spent nearly two days in a space just large enough for them to slither a few feet, shouting, praying and trying to forget about their gnawing thirst - until they saw a rescuer's hand.

``We expected to be crushed any moment,'' Kemal Yildirim said today. ``We thought we were breathing our last breaths.''