The first thing he remembers is that he was dreaming of a vacation in a place that he did not recognize, but that gave him peace of mind. She was surrounded by several trees. Some very tall. And in the distance she heard a waterfall. — “Shhhh… shhh… shhhh” — she murmurs with a voice that clears her throat. She felt her lungs fill with oxygen. She was at peace.
After a while, he heard someone yell something at him. —“Yalla, Yalla (quick, in Arabic)—. When she turned to see what she was, He felt a heavy weight on his body. Her eyes closed and everything turned black.
It’s called Gada. She survived along with one of her two children; the other died under the rubble. He was in the other room of her house when A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck early Monday on the Turkey-Syria border. They were miraculously saved. As soon as the woman opened her eyes again, she felt a pang in her head. She had her other son hugged. They were upside down and a wall was crushing them.
“I didn’t know if she was dead. And if she was, she just thought it was the worst suffering, ”she narrates. We talk on the cell phone, but the communication is slow. She is in some kind of makeshift tent, her face bandaged. Since the tragedy was recorded, mobile lines and the internet are much more restricted, almost zero.
(Also read: Pamuk and Cilek, the pets rescued in Turkey after the earthquake: video)
A Syrian man and boy inspect the rubble of a building in the town of Jindayris.
Their home in Aleppo, the second most populous city in Syria, was destroyed. “I was thirsty and my arm was between the wall and my son’s head. I only wanted to feel his sighs on my hand, because I could know if he was still alive, ”he says.
That moment was similar to the one that went viral on social networks this week and that showed a 7-year-old girl protecting her younger sister. “Get me out of this rubble, sir, and I’ll do what you want, I’ll be your servant,” she told the rescuer that she was helping them. They lasted more than 30 hours under the ruins of his house. Both survived.
(You may be interested in: The story of Johanna Carolina, a Colombian who died after earthquakes)
But surviving in this place is a leap of faith. It’s screaming in silence. It’s crying and not having more tears to do it. It’s getting used to seeing the shadow of death hanging around. It is becoming a martyr without asking. It is to be doomed to wander in a nightmare. It is a reality inscribed in the imagination of its young people.
When they thought there was a small light because they saw that the streets where they played as children and through which they ran to hide from missiles, and the buildings that they saw fall and that silenced the voices of hundreds of their friends, began to fade. rebuild, another inevitable bomb hit.
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Temporary camps where Syrians affected by the earthquake live today.
“Twelve years of war do not compare to the devastation we are experiencing. It is something catastrophic. What the war could not do, nature has done”, explains an agitated Mahmoud Othman, 24, in dialogue with this newspaper.
“There is total destruction in Aleppo, Jableh, Idlib and Hama” —he says— “At 4:15 am on Monday we woke up and everything was moving. There was a terrifying sound. Some were able to evacuate but others did not have time to do so. We felt that it was the end. I was afraid of dying and afraid of running away and leaving my mother and father, who cannot run like me because they are old. I didn’t want to go back to the pain of losing the ones I love the most.”
(Also: Miraculous rescues that have stunned the world after earthquake in Turkey and Syria)
What war could not do, nature has done
During that first earthquake, the young man hugged his parents and waited for it to pass. Then they evacuated. “When the sun came out, the dimension of what had happened was seen. Many houses had collapsed and entire families died that fateful day.”, he describes.
Mahmoud and his family did not return to their home. Every hour he was immersed in the screams of people searching for their loved ones and looking up at the sky questioning the disaster and the sound of buildings collapsing.
“Around one in the afternoon, it trembled again. And everything got complicated. A relative died with his wife and his five children after spending more than 30 hours under the rubble, ”says the gruesome scene that became more chaotic with the icy cold it was doing.
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Rescuers search for survivors in Latakia province.
Every rescue, a miracle
The first 72 hours are key for rescues. For this reason, every time it happens it is celebrated as if it were the triumph of a soccer World Cup. It is the celebration for the highest prize of humanity: life.
This is what happened when they took out Ghada and her son, and the Syrian boy who with a smile showed the rescuers that he was breathing, and the girl in the blue jacket who had half her body buried, and the brothers who lasted three days in the middle of scaffolding, and the family of five who was rescued alive after spending 129 hours under the rubble, and the baby born just after the disaster: her parents, four siblings and an aunt died; she was covered in dust and with her umbilical cord intact. “It’s a miracle,” said those who saw it.
And it is that each life saved could be considered a miracle. This is how a 42-year-old man in Adana (Turkey) thinks when he refers to the story of his nephew: “He was the only one who was saved. They cut off a leg. He emerged from the rubble in Diyarbakir. He is 26 years old. He is still in intensive care. He is fighting for his life.”
(You can read: Earthquake in Turkey and Syria: shocking aerial images of the catastrophe)
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Teams rescue a 56-year-old man four days after the earthquake in Turkey.
That last sentence is also repeated by Emir, a 34-year-old Turk who was in Kahramanmaras, devastated by earthquakes. “The situation is dire. I was on the first floor and everything fell apart with the second earthquake. I thought that everything had already stopped, but it was not. During the first days, I heard voices in the distance in the middle of the ruins. The last time before I left there, I stopped hearing them.”
That city along with Gaziantep, Antioquia, Hatay and Adiyaman —where the Colombian Johanna Carolina Millán died, who was a tourist guide and was at the Isias hotel— are destroyed. They are small towns and their old buildings are collapsed or, for the most part, damaged.
(Keep reading: Why the Turkey-Syria earthquake is one of the most devastating?)
“Blankets, power sources and other items are needed for the survival of those who survived and lost everything,” says Ahmet, who has family in Hatay. “They are not counting all the dead there are, much less those who have not been able to identify themselves” —he assures while his voice breaks and he sighs—.
“This government needs to help more and turn its eyes towards this side of the country, because it is not doing it.” Something in which the man from Adana agrees: “They are not caring about these people.”
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Survivors call for international help after the tragedy.
The cry is also heard from the other side of the border, in Syria: “I hope that the Western countries stop their siege against us”, exclaims a man living in Aleppo, while watching a group of rescuers. Very close is another woman who assures: “I don’t know where to go now with my children. Now we live on the street and we are people with disabilities. Nobody helps us.”
(In other news: Deadliest earthquakes of the 21st century: where did they go and how many victims did they leave?)
Almost a week later, the chances of finding people alive are slim to none. Now the concern is to address the humanitarian crisis that was created on top of another that already existed in these places. Millions of people need help and seek to return to that moment in which they finally saw that a solution was looming. They want to get out of the loop of chaos in which they have been, “a new light”, as Ghada says, and that the boys and girls, many orphans now, know the face of a life that the older ones could not have.
a humanitarian crisis
The latest reports say that more than 25,000 people died after the earthquakes. In addition, according to the UN, at least 870,000 people urgently need food and in Syria, 5.3 million people are homeless. The World Health Organization said that in total some 26 million people were affected.
This Saturday, the Syrian government authorized the distribution of international aid in the northwest of the country, but under the supervision of the Red Cross. And, for the first time in 35 years, a border crossing between Turkey and Armenia was opened to allow assistance.
DAVID ALEJANDRO LOPEZ BERMUDEZ
MULTIMEDIA REPORTS JOURNALIST
TIME
On Twitter: @lopez03david
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