“I cannot compare the destruction from the bombings with the destruction from the earthquake. The earthquake is stronger than any bombing that took place in Syria“.

OUR Ismail Alabdulla he is Syrian and is part of a white-helmeted volunteer rescue group known as the “White Helmets”. Talk to “K”. on the outskirts of Aleppo, hit on Monday by a devastating earthquake. “We removed over 1,900 bodies and rescued over 3,000 wounded. We fight against time to save others,” he says, crying out for help. “We don’t have what we need. We have primitive tools, we only have rudimentary equipment, our hands. Now we are facing great difficulties, we need equipment.”

White helmets were created in 2014 by volunteers to help victims of the explosions. Volunteer rescuers initially included bakers, tailors, engineers, pharmacists, students who did not specialize in search and rescue. On their website, they claim to have saved or helped approximately 100,000 people over the past five years.

“The earthquake is stronger than any bombing in Syria,” says a member of the White Helmets group and calls for help.

“What makes the earthquake especially devastating is that it comes after more than a decade of war, bombing by the Syrian regime and Russian forces. Infrastructure was weak anyway, people lacked access to basic goods and relied on humanitarian aid. The earthquake was like a nail in the coffin,” said Ubada Alwan, public relations manager for the organization. He describes that in Aleppo and the wider Idlib region, 500 buildings collapsed, 1,000 suffered irreparable damage, and thousands more were hit by Monday’s twin devastating earthquakes.

“We do not have enough people to withstand the disaster. We need rescuers to come and help, but we also need equipment, rescue tools, things like generators, cutters, ambulances, battery compressors and things like that that help us rescue people trapped in rubble,” adds Alvan.

According to the UN Security Council, there is only one border crossing for the delivery of aid to Syria through Turkey, which makes it difficult for humanitarian supplies to reach the earthquake-hit region in northwestern Syria. “We sent calls for immediate help, no one answered,” Ismail Alabdullah tells “K”., while Ubanda Alwan rides the same wave. “We are also asking why, why there was no international response, why rescue equipment was not sent, why we do not know the answers either. Even before the earthquake, the northwest of Syria was almost completely dependent on international assistance, so the earthquake really made things worse.”

Syria sent a request on Wednesday to the European Civil Protection Mechanism asking for help with medical equipment. In Greece, the material is being collected by the Ministry of Health and is expected to be sent in the next 24 hours, probably via the United Nations. “It is heartbreaking, there are no words that could describe what each of us is feeling right now,” Aluan concluded.