Images of devastation after the deadly earthquakes in Turkey and Syria: In the midst of rain, they search for life in the debris

The death toll from the two very strong earthquakes on Turkey’s border with Syria is rising by the hour as thousands of buildings have collapsed and many people remain trapped in the debris.

The aftershocks, rain and snow, combined with the drop in temperature at night, make the situation even more difficult for the trapped and homeless, while also hampering the work of rescue teams.

The first earthquake, at 4.17 am (local time), found the residents asleep.

“My wife and children and I ran to the door of our apartment, which was on the third floor. As soon as we opened it, the whole building collapsed,” said Osama Abdelhamid, a resident of Azmarin, a Syrian village on the border with Turkey.

Osama is now being treated at Al-Rahma Hospital in the city of Darqus. In seconds, he found himself trapped in the rubble of the four-story apartment building, but “God saved him,” as he says. His family was also saved.

“The walls fell on us but my son managed to get out, he started shouting. People gathered and they took us out,” says this man with emotion. All his neighbors were killed.

The hospital in Al Rahma is overwhelmed with people, ambulances are constantly transporting injured people, among them many children. They also carried 30 dead.

In Syria, in areas controlled by rebels and jihadists, the dead are at least 390. In the provinces controlled by the Damascus regime, 538 victims have been recorded so far.

In Turkey, the dead are 1,541, the wounded at least 9,733, according to Vice President Fuat Oktay. At least 3,471 buildings collapsed and the toll will rise even further.

Apocalypse scenes

“My sister and her three children are under the rubble. So is her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law. Seven members of our family,” Muhitin Oraksi said in the morning, in front of the ruins of a building in Diyarbakir, southeast Turkey.

In Kahramanmaras, Melissa Salman, a 23-year-old journalist, says she is used to living with earthquakes, “But this is the first time I’ve experienced something like this. We thought the Apocalypse had come,” he said.

Bad weather in this mountainous region has paralyzed the main airports around Diyarbakir and Malatya, where heavy snowfall continues. Those who escaped the earthquake but were left homeless found themselves in their pajamas outside in the cold.

“We hear voices here and there down there. We think maybe 200 people are trapped in the debris,” said a rescuer, referring to a collapsed building in Diyarbakir.

Faced with this disaster, everywhere the inhabitants are mobilizing and trying to remove the rubble by hand or with shovels.

In Hama, in central-western Syria, rescuers and civilians hand-pulled bodies from a building. Among them was a child. In Xadaris, further north, a man, overwhelmed, mourns the death of his son, a little boy, who holds him in his arms, refusing to part with him. At least 40 houses fell like paper towers in this community on the border with Turkey.

Residents have no machinery and are digging with household tools and their hands to find survivors. “My whole family was buried here. My sons, my daughter, my son-in-law, there is no one to take them out,” says Ali Batal, panting from the effort.

“Judgment Day”

In Aleppo, Anas Habakeh, 37, as soon as he felt the earthquake, went to pick up his son and shouted to his pregnant wife to come down to the entrance of their three-story apartment building.

“We went down the stairs like crazy and once we got to the street, we saw dozens of terrified families. Some were kneeling and praying, others were crying, it was as if Judgment Day had arrived,” he recounted.

“I have not felt anything like it in all the years of the war.

The situation is much worse than the bombs,” he added.

RES-EMP

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