Survivors from earthquake in Lattakia talk about the terrible 10 seconds they ever lived 

It was around 4:20 o’clock at dawn. She was sleeping on her bed when she heard her grandchildren and her son’s wife shouting: “ It is an earthquake”.  But she could not leave her bed because she lost her consciousness. A few minutes later she found herself under the  rubble and she saw her daughter, Yasmin, pulling her 4-month-old boy under rain.. So, she shouted “ Yasmin help me”.. Her daughter asked the young men to help her to rescue her mother, who is receiving treatment in a hospital now.

Yasmin’s mother lost her 3 grandchildren and her son’s wife.

Another story was narrated by Noha, the mother who lost her 1-year-old child as a rock fell on his back.

“I was sleeping with my child, Yehya , when the bed started shaking because of the earthquake. I rushed to leave the room after my husband asked me to bring Yahya. I started running, hoping to survive, and suddenly I lost hope and felt that life was over,” she said.

“I saw with my own eyes the walls falling around me, and in 10 seconds the house collapsed. My husband and I are still alive, but my child died….We have bruises and fractures… I thank God anyway. I will never forget that seconds,” Noha added.

Ali, a university students, was studying for an exam when the earthquake occurred.

“I saw death coming….Everything around me was destroyed, the shaking  destroyed all the buildings that I saw….It was 4 o’clock and 17 minutes in the morning, all my family members were sleeping while I was studying for an  exam…. For a few seconds, I found myself, the table and the chair I was sitting on shaking….. The moment I left the room to check on my family, the building started to sway…We could not do anything, not even get out of the house. The stairs collapsed…..We were buried under the rubble. But with the help of rescuers, we were pulled out. My mother and sister are in the hospital, while my father and my little brother died.”

“I have never witnessed such a strong earthquake. I thought it was the end of the world.” This is how Um Mohammad described her situation after she lost her two grandchildren and their father.

“We were sleeping in the house when the earthquake happened….Just in a few seconds, most of the buildings that were in front of us started collapsing., We opened the door to leave…But we couldn’t do that…..If we went out, rocks would fall on our heads,” Em Mohammad added.

She went on to say with tears in her eyes: ” We were six people in the house, me, my husband, my son, his children, and his wife. On that day, in the morning, my son and his family arrived from the city of Damascus. He told me two days before the earthquake: (I’m coming to visit you with my children, and my wife); But I did not know that he came to die.”

Four days ago, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that the number of earthquake victims in Lattakia governorate rose to 506 deaths and 792 injuries in the governorate, while the number of collapsed buildings hit 102.

Last Monday, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck  Syria killing at least 1,408 people and wounding 2,341 others, according to Syrian Health Ministry.

On Friday, Sivanka Dhanapala, the Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) drclared: “ “As many as 5.3 million people in Syria may have been left homeless by the earthquake…..That is a huge number and comes to a population already suffering mass displacement.”

“For Syria, this is a crisis within a crisis,” he added, “We’ve had economic shocks, COVID and are now in the depths of winter, with blizzards raging in the affected areas.”

Survivors of the magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 quakes have flocked to camps set up for people displaced by nearly 12 years of war from other parts of Syria. Many lost their homes or are too scared to return to damaged buildings.

Basma Qaddour