Earthquake deepens misery in war-torn northern Syria in the dead of winter

Crying children, collapsed buildings and hospitals littered with corpses: A devastating earthquake on Monday left painfully familiar scenes for Syrian citizens and first responders exhausted by nearly 12 years of shelling and displacement.

The 7.8-magnitude quake sent people onto the streets in the north of the country, where airstrikes and shelling have already traumatized the population and weakened the foundations of many buildings.

In the rebel-held town of Jandaris in Aleppo province, a mound of concrete, steel rods and bundles of clothing lay where a multi-story building once stood.

“There were 12 families down there. Not a single one came out. Not one”said a thin young man, his eyes wide in shock and his hand bandaged.

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“We were taking people out ourselves at three in the morning”he said, his breath visible in the cold winter air as he spoke.

Young men could be seen clawing at rubble and throwing hammers on concrete slabs looking for survivors. Dented water tanks and solar panels had been blown off the roofs and landed on the damp ground.

The White Helmets, a rescue service founded in rebel-held territory to treat people injured in shelling, said at least 147 people were killed in opposition-held northwestern Syria.

In government-controlled territory, authorities put the death toll at more than 300 and more than 1,000 injured.

In Turkey, the national emergency agency said at least 1,121 people were killed, with more than 7,500 injured, according to the latest estimates.

“We are in a race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble. Even though our teams are exhausted, we don’t have time to rest.”White Helmets chief Raed al-Saleh told Reuters by telephone.

He added that air raids over the years had left the buildings structurally fragile, so “they collapsed immediately”which ultimately led to more deaths.

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frigid temperatures

Millions of people in northwestern Syria have been left vulnerable by the conflict, according to the United Nations, which says 2.9 million people in the region have been displaced and 1.8 million are living in camps.

Rescue teams have worked for years rescuing people from shelling and airstrikes by the Syrian government or Russian forces that often target the same location multiple times, putting the lives of paramedics at risk.

“At least now, nobody is going to bombard us while we work”Saleh said.

But the cold winter weather presents another challenge for rescuers, who said families were exposed to near-freezing temperatures and heavy rain.

In a section of Idlib province, the quake damaged modest structures in displacement camps housing Syrians who had fled the war over the years, said Ahmad al-Sheikh, a resident of a nearby border town. .

(With information from Reuters)