“There were screams everywhere, I removed stones with my hands to remove the wounded”: the anguish in Turkey and Syria to rescue the survivors

Heroes without capes begin to leave their mark amid the devastation caused by the powerful earthquake that devastated towns in Turkey and Syria. One of them tells how he rescued wounded people trapped under rubble.

The clock ticked 04:17 this Monday, February 6 of 2023 when the Earth moved furiously.

It was so strong that agencies and media, such as Clarín, point out that the movement was felt in 14 countries, including Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus and Jordan.

Another 7.5-magnitude earthquake shakes Turkey; In the movement that also affected northern Syria, the dead exceeded 1,500

screams after the earthquake

“I ran outside. There were screams everywhere. I began to remove stones with my hands. Among the friends we took out the wounded, but the screams did not stop. Then the rescue teams arrived,” a survivor in Turkey told RTVE.

“I have never felt anything like this in the 40 years that I have lived. We were shaken at least three times with great force, like a baby in a cradle,” said Erdem, one of thousands who jumped from their beds when the ground shook with force.

Erden is from Gaziantep, in southern Turkey, where the dead, EFE reports, will be more than 1,100.

buildings collapse

The impact of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake has left several “fronts” open to which volunteers and rescue workers have been deployed to search for survivors.

In the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, a building collapsed in full view as the collapse was broadcast during a live report for a television medium.

AFP images show the rescue of an injured man from the rubble of a collapsed building in the town of Afrin. Also that of a girl injured from the rubble of a building in the city of Jandaris.

A man, Sako, told EFE what he saw of the destruction: “Today I passed by the Al Hal Souq and many buildings had collapsed, thank God we survived. In the streets you can see broken stones fallen from the buildings”.

He said three acquaintances lost their lives. They lived in one of the buildings that did not resist the impact of the very strong earthquake.

“The earthquake took them away, what can we do?” Sako lamented with the calm of someone who has lived through almost twelve years of war in Syria, EFE published.

In SANA, the official Syrian news agency, they indicated that the quake caused the collapse of 46 residential buildings in Aleppo.

survivors speak

“We were nine at home. Two of my children are still in the rubble, I am waiting for them”. That testimony is that of a woman who was presented in El Mundo as a survivor of this tragedy. One of her arms and her face show injuries caused in the collapse of the 7-storey building where she lived in Diyarbakir.

Nilüfer Aslan resides in Adana where the block where he was with his family was moved as paper. He slept on the 5th floor and when he felt the shaking he thought the worst.

“We swayed for almost a minute,” he said, quoted on BBC Mundo.

He added that he shouted to everyone: ‘There is an earthquake, at least let’s die together in the same place’… It was the only thing that crossed my mind”.

(YO)

We recommend these news