Earthquake: Felt like doomsday

Long before dawn, Idlib resident Muhammad Alloush was awoken by the violent earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale

– The house collapsed when we evacuated from the house, and my hand was injured when things fell on top of us while I was protecting my grandson when we were on our way out of the house, Alloush tells Al Jazeera.

– Doomsday

He has tears in his eyes as he talks about the night’s trauma. Two family members who were in the same building were unable to get out, he says.

– I hope my neighbors will be saved, he says and continues:

– The fear we experienced today can only be described as a form of doomsday.

Alloush and his family are already refugees. They originally come from the Syrian city of Homs, but were forced to flee during the Syrian civil war. Now they live in the rebel-held Syrian town of Sarmada, which lies right in the border area with Turkey.

– Thought we were going to die

The Syrian aid worker and father of three, Mohammad Hamza, also experienced the nightmare of his life, when he woke up to the earthquake, he tells BBC.

– I found my children sleeping, and had no idea what to do. Should I wake them or just let them sleep? I thought, he says and continues:

– We were going to die anyway. That’s what I thought. So should I scare them by waking them up?, he says.

Hamza considered what to do. Leave them in bed – or put them under the bed.

– I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move, he says.

Refuge in streets and parks

The earthquake, with an epicenter in the Turkish province of Kahramanmaras, has caused at least 3,000 people to lose their lives on Monday evening. In northern Syria, a large number of survivors must now seek refuge in the streets and in public places despite the severe cold, according to Al Jazeera.

– Our people work continuously to get people out of the destroyed buildings. At least 133 buildings are completely destroyed, 272 are partially destroyed, while thousands of other buildings are not reasonably safe to stay in, says Ismail Abdullah, an aid worker in the White Helmets, to Al Jazeera.

– Millions have been sent to flee because of war, and now even more people will lose their homes. It is important that the world stands up for the Syrians who have to deal with this disaster on top of cold winter storms and sky-high prices, says Carsten Hansen, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s regional director in the Middle East, in a press release.