Just hours after the government announced that it has ended the search-and-rescue phase of its response to the massive earthquake in Haiti, French rescue workers pulled a 24-year-old man alive from the rubble of a hotel in Haiti on Saturday, 11 days after the earthquake devastated much of the country.

Wismond Jean-Pierre, who had no visible injuries but was severely dehydrated, was immediately loaded into an ambulance and taken to a hospital for treatment.

One member of the French team called the three-hour effort “a miracle” as he was briefly overcome with emotion. Other members of the team — assisted by American and Greek workers — were seen weeping with joy after the rescue.

The man’s brothers said they reported hearing tapping from within the ruins of the Hotel Napoli Inn for several days but struggled to get authorities to the scene. A Greek journalist said he alerted Greek rescue workers after hearing the tapping for himself.

A French rescuer said the man was found in a pocket in the rubble and was able to move all of his extremities.

The rescuer said the man did not say much when he was pulled out but did indicate that there were three or four people around him when the building collapsed. The rescuer said the man had not heard any sounds around him for a couple of days, but workers were going into the rubble with radar equipment to check for any other survivors.

Earlier Saturday, the government announced that it has ended the search-and-rescue phase of its response to the disaster and that more than 111,000 people had died in the quake and its aftermath.

The government’s figure, released by the United Nations late Friday, is the first precise death toll for the magnitude-7.0 quake that struck January 12. It said 111,481 people were confirmed dead.

It is the worst death toll from an earthquake since the 2004 Asian tsunami and the second-highest death toll from an earthquake in more than three decades, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

About 609,000 people have also been left homeless in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

Before the search-and-rescue effort ended Friday afternoon, the U.N. office said said, rescuers had managed to pull 132 people alive from the rubble.

That number did not include two rescues Friday. An Israeli team pulled a 22-year-old man alive from the ruins of a three-story building, and doctors in Port-au-Prince were treating a 69-year-old woman they said was rescued Friday morning.

(Source: CNN)