The images that come in after the earthquakes show children trapped, orphaned babies and parents who do not separate from their children despite being buried under the rubble
It is one of the images that gives a face to the earthquakes that have shaken Syria and Turkey. Nour has been around the world after being rescued from the rubble. “Daddy’s here, don’t be afraid,” her father told her as a rescuer pulled her to save her life.
The footage was released by the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the “White Helmets,” who are on duty in various parts of northern Syria to find and pull survivors from the rubble.
According to the updated data during the afternoon of this Tuesday, the tremors in Syria have claimed 812 deaths in the areas controlled by the authorities. However, to this figure must be added more than 1,020 deaths in the rebel-controlled areas in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.
In addition, earthquakes in Turkey have claimed 5,434 fatalities so far, according to the Turkish Emergency and Disaster Management Authority (AFAD).
Among the stories spread by this group is that of a family almost completely trapped in a residential building. In the video published on their social networks, you can see how the rescuers saw a hand move slightly and ended up rescuing several children.
As can be seen from the pictures, in most cases the parents do not survive, because they protect their children with their own bodies, so that they are not crushed by the iron and cement blocks that fell after the earthquakes.
While his identity is unknown, the same thing happened to two minors. A 7-year-old girl has been protecting her little brother with her own arm for at least 17 hours so that the debris would not crush him. Both survived.
In a video that has gone viral on social networks, you can see the little ones trapped under cement slabs and how the girl desperately asks the rescuer for help. Her words are not really clear as some translate them as “save us, please, and I’ll be your slave for life” and others point out that she promises to be her “friend”.
Also on Tuesday, the image of a volunteer pulling a baby out of the rubble after the mother gave birth and died shortly afterwards in Syria also went viral. Everything indicates that the baby is safe in a clinic in Afrin, north of Aleppo, as he is the only survivor of his family.
Another face of the tragedy is Mesut Hancer. He appears in the AFP photo with a lost look and, until the last moment, holding the hand of his 15-year-old daughter Irmak, inert between two concrete slabs.
The photo was taken in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, where grief and anger collide over the lack of aid for the earthquake victims. As of Tuesday, no aid or supplies had arrived in this city of more than a million people in the southern region of Cappadocia, the agencies said.
The desperation in Hatay, a province in southern Turkey, is also reflected in the lack of rescue workers. Sub-zero temperatures, snow and rain in the area complicate the search for survivors.
Deniz, a man in the city of Antakya, tearfully described to Reuters that there are still people alive among the rubble asking for help but unable to be helped.
“They make noise, but no one comes. We are devastated. My God. They scream. They say ‘save us’, but we can’t save them… There’s no one,” he says.
Source: La Verdad
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