“The smell of death is everywhere”: rescuers spoke about the difficult problems associated with earthquake victims

“We need heavy equipment, humanitarian and medical assistance”

In Turkey, many complain about the slow, according to some, the actions of the authorities to eliminate the terrible consequences of the catastrophic earthquake: there are not enough rescuers, equipment, and precious time is running out. But in neighboring Syria, tormented by many years of civil war, hell reigns in the areas affected by the underground elements.

The Syrian Civil Defense Group is calling for search and rescue supplies, describing the situation in militant-held northwestern Syria as “tragic” and filled with the “smell of death.”

“The situation is tragic in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, hundreds of families are still under the rubble,” Al Jazeera quoted a volunteer named Asim al-Yahya as saying. According to him, there is an acute shortage of search and rescue equipment.

Rescuers report on the Internet that “death looms over the quarters of Salkin,” a city west of the city of Idlib. “The smell of death is everywhere,” their message says.

A Syrian civil engineer from the northwestern city of Idlib told Al Jazeera that shelling during the civil war contributed to the rapid collapse of buildings after the earthquake. And according to one of the volunteers, the old buildings in Syria were erected without taking into account the factor of natural disasters, while some newly built buildings did not meet technical and engineering standards. One such example, he says, is the inability to put enough metal reinforcement into foundations.

The Syrian Civil Defense Group continued search operations throughout the night in rebel-held areas of Syria as rescue efforts neared the 72-hour mark, which disaster experts say is the most likely time to save lives.

Hundreds of people remain trapped under rubble in the city of Jandires in Aleppo province, according to rescuers.

While countries around the world have sent rescue teams and supplies to quake-hit Turkey, locals say a small portion of that aid has arrived in armed opposition-held areas of northwestern Syria.

“I call on the international community, the Arab countries and the United Nations to urgently help us,” says medical volunteer Obaida Rannoush, standing at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing between Turkey and Syria. More than 60 hours after the earthquake, hundreds of people are still trapped under the rubble. We cannot save them because of our meager resources. We need heavy equipment, humanitarian and medical assistance.”

According to him, so far not a single humanitarian convoy has crossed the border between Syria and Turkey. “We didn’t get any help,” he stressed. “We are standing here at the border crossing to ask for humanitarian aid so we can rescue some of the people under the rubble.”

If the West is in no hurry to help the Syrian opposition it supports, then the US and its allies are not particularly enthusiastic about helping the affected areas under the control of the Syrian government. “Unfortunately, the West only cares about the areas where the terrorists are, where the White Helmets are, but they don’t care about the areas where the majority of Syrians live,” Busein Shaaban, an adviser to the SAR president, told Sky News.

Read also: Scientists explain the deadly nature of the earthquake in Turkey