A crowd gathered this Tuesday (7) among the wreckage of a street in the city of Idlib, Syria, to watch the rescue of an entire family that was in the ruins of a collapsed building after the earthquake. Cell phones in hand, hundreds of residents climbed onto the rubble of the affected buildings and cheered with the removal of people – which included three children, according to the images.
The rescue team had to use equipment to break through the wall that trapped the family in place and opened a corridor through the crowd to pass with the survivors. The family members, some on stretchers, were taken to an ambulance, where they received the first aid. In the video, it is possible to see five people being removed from the wreckage by the rescuers, who vibrated with each rescue.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit southeast Turkey and northern Syria last Monday (6) has killed more than 11,000 people as of Wednesday morning (8). According to the WHO (World Health Organization), the number of fatal victims could reach 20,000, and those affected, 23 million. More than 8,000 people have already been rescued, according to the American newspaper The New York Times.
Syrian Civil Defense volunteers, also known as the White Helmets, rescue victims of airstrikes in rebel-held regions in Syria. A civil war has raged in the country for almost 12 years and has already killed more than 306,000 civilians, according to a UN report in June last year, and displaced more than 5.4 million people, according to UNHCR, the United Nations agency. Nations for Refugees. The organization was already a strong name for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2016 – the year in which former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos took the prize.
The work of the White Helmets follows a motto taken from the Koran, the holy book of Islam, which says that saving one life is equivalent to saving all of humanity. The phrase was used in one of the publications about the saved family this Tuesday.
The group’s social networks have several rescue scenes. Also on Tuesday, another family was pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Jandiris, in northern Aleppo. The video shows the work of rescuers, who check the pulse of one of the victims and pick up the baby.
The director of the Turkish Red Crescent (equivalent to the Red Cross in Muslim countries), Kerem Kinik, says that the first 72 hours were critical for rescue work, and that actions were hampered by “severe weather conditions”. The cold and snow are hampering operations in the affected areas, and there are reports of survivors spending the night outside or in cars, often in freezing temperatures.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
