Hope for earthquake survivors ‘dwindling by the hour’ in war-torn Syria

An international aid agency whose staff are among the survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria has warned that the hope of rescuing people alive is fading by the hour.  

The International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) office in north-west Syria has been rendered inaccessible and its workers on the ground are among those impacted by the devastation.  

More than 6,300 people are estimated to have been killed after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which struck at 4am local time on Monday, caused damage on a colossal scale.

As the World Health Organisation said the final figure may reach 20,000, the charity’s director of policy, advocacy and communications for the Middle East and North Africa warned that existing emergencies in Syria are hampering the rescue and relief effort.  

Speaking from Jordan, Mark Kaye told Metro.co.uk: ‘We have 1,000 staff in northern Syria and a lot of them have been severely impacted.

‘They were woken two nights ago hearing buildings collapse around them.

‘Many of our staff are now survivors, they are sleeping in cars, schools and mosques because they are not able to go back to their homes, either because their homes no longer exist or because they are worried about the after-tremors. There’s a real nervousness that if you go back into these buildings they might come tumbling down.’

An international aid effort includes the UK sending 77 search and rescue specialists, state-of-the-art equipment and four specially-trained dogs to support the rescue operation in Turkey.

However the impacted area in Syria was already suffering a lack of basic infrastructure, with public services decimated by 12 years of war, Mr Kaye warned. The White Helmets humanitarian organisation said it has 3,000 volunteers working at ‘full capacity’ on the ground searching for survivors, transporting hundreds of people to hospital in freezing cold and rain, and pulling the dead from collapsed buildings.

Aleppo, one of the areas already ravaged by the war, is among the areas experiencing the worst devastation.  

The cold now presents a lethal threat, with sub-zero temperatures predicted tonight in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which lies in the centre of the country near the epicentre of the earthquake. 

Mr Kaye said: ‘In Syria, the big issue is the lack of search and rescue capacity. There’s no functioning state in the areas that are most deeply affected.

‘These are areas that the government in Syria is not in control of. The White Helmets have done a heroic job but they are effectively having to do the entire work of a state with very little support.

‘It’s been life and humanity-affirming to see the UK and international community sending search and rescue teams to Turkey, where there is huge need, but there is a population in Syria who were the most vulnerable people in the world even before this earthquake who are now largely having to fend for themselves.’ 

A race against the clock is now underway in the second night since the earthquake, which was followed by another of 7.7 magnitude.

‘For those still trapped, hope dwindles with every hour that goes by,’ Mr Kaye said. ‘There is a severe weatherstorm coming to the region which we warned about two days before the earthquake hit.

‘It was already going to be a particularly bad week for many Syrians living in makeshift shelters or IDP [internally displaced persons] camps in flimsy tents. At night time, temperatures are going down to minus zero and those who are trapped in the rubble for a second night will have to face exposure.

‘The sad fact is the clock is ticking and if the international community isn’t able to support those search and rescue teams on the ground immediately then effectively what is a response operation right now will become a recovery operation in terms of pulling bodies from the rubble.

‘It’s really grim. I’ve been doing this job for 14 years on many emergencies and this is about as bad as it gets.’ 

Staff are unable to access the main office and some of the field sites have also been damaged, but Mr Kaye said they are determined to scale up their existing health and protection work in coming weeks.  

Both Syria and Lebanon, where the earthquake was also felt, were already on the IRC’s 2023 emergency watchlist of places most at risk of deteriorating humanitarian crises in the coming year.

Mr Kaye added: ‘We haven’t given up hope and in other crises I’ve worked on a week has gone by and people have been pulled alive from the rubble, but those are the exception to the rule.

‘At the moment we are in the life-saving phase but the questions that will follow in the coming days will be where these people will go, where they will sleep, how they will get clean water, how we will make sure cholera doesn’t spread if the waste systems have been destroyed and how we will get aid to people in rural areas where roads and bridges have been destroyed.

‘These will be the big questions.’ 

The foreign secretary James Cleverly told the House of Commons today that 6,000 buildings have collapsed across a region inhabited by more than 12 million people.

Three British nationals are among those missing in the aftermath. 

Rishi Sunak has pledged to send aid to Syria ‘as quickly as possible’. 

The prime minister said: ‘It’s obviously an incredibly tragic situation that we’re all seeing in Turkey and Syria

‘I want everyone to know that we are doing what we can to provide support, we are in touch with the authorities in both Syria and Turkey.’

To support the IRC’s relief appeal click here

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