Syrians cheer on extraordinary rescues in the earthquake's dire aftermath

The crowd chants "Allahu akbar," Arabic for God is Great. Volunteers and civil defense groups — themselves earthquake survivors — pull a boy out from the rubble alive in rebel-held northwestern Syria.

He's the only member of his family to survive the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked parts of his country and Turkey on Monday.

A day earlier, another video went viral showing volunteer rescuers in a different part of the rebel-held territory saving a family — two girls, a boy and their father — from under the rubble some 40 hours after the quake.

The world knows of these rescues because of Karam Kellieh, a resident and photojournalist who lives in the opposition-controlled territory. The area is home to some 4 million people displaced by the decade-long Syrian civil war. Even before the earthquake, the area was devastated by bombs and poverty. Aid was often hampered by politics and the Syrian government.

"It's devastation. Devastation for the women and children," he said.

NPR was able to reach Kellieh on Wednesday by phone. He spoke from Jinderes, a part of Syria's Aleppo province that's under opposition control. He said countless buildings there have collapsed. People are in the streets in the freezing cold, waiting for aid to arrive. Aftershocks have made buildings still standing unlivable.

"Humanitarian aid and international aid haven't appeared 72 hours after the catastrophic earthquake," he said, describing the little help that is trickling into the region as a haphazard grassroots effort by individual groups.

"Rescue efforts are being carried out by poorly equipped civil defense groups and civilians are trying to help," Kelliah said. "Everyone's waiting for international rescue and aid just to be able to process what's happened, this catastrophe."

A grim situation persists in northwest Syria

Local authorities say 11,000 families in the rebel-held part of Syria are now homeless after the quake. Up to 2,000 deaths have been reported and thousands more injured, according to the United Nations.

Rescue efforts continue as untold others remain trapped under the rubble. Stories of miraculous rescues, like that of a baby girl born under the rubble, are a bullhorn for what's at stake.

"The situation remains grim in north-west Syria where only five percent of reported sites are being covered by search and rescue," the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.

In other parts of Syria controlled by the government, the Syrian Health Ministry said more than 1,200 people have died from the earthquake. The overall death toll across Syria and Turkey has passed 16,000, according to The Associated Press. Tens of thousands more have been injured.

People are digging with their own hands in many areas, but the situation is particularly dire in northwestern Syria, where there is little heavy machinery to lift rubble. Power outages have resulted in fuel shortages in hospitals.

The U.N. has plans to use one border crossing from Turkey into the area starting Thursday after ​delays caused by road damage.

Aya Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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