Trapped With Their Disabilities: Stories From the Night of the Earthquake

Mahmoud Abu Rass

Despite the quake that struck two weeks after, resulting in a number of victims and material losses, the wounds caused by the earthquakes of February 6 are still open; and the tragic stories that need to be told are plenty. It’s like Earth has had it with its people. 

“Land of the lord, please hold still. Land of the lord, please keep us safe,” Khaled tried to console himself when the earthquake hit Jindires, a town in northern Syria. Khaled is a man in his sixties, blind, and lives with his family of 5 members. 

During the first moments of the earthquake of February 6, everyone went out and left him alone. He couldn’t walk in the dark, with the ground moving and the foundation of the house falling down. They didn’t have the time to get him out, and his attempts to escape failed. So, he had nothing to do except waiting and praying.

“Land of the lord, please hold still. Land of the lord, please keep us safe,”

"I have never experienced such horror and fear in my life. I involuntarily sat with my hands above my head, while vases and plates kept falling near me. I tried to shout at first, but the sound of the ground; and the voices of screaming children and women in the neighborhood were louder,” he explained. 

Once the ground stopped shaking, Khaled started to feel his surroundings. His hand got injured by a broken vase, and bled. He tried to get out of the house, leaning on his hands. “I was afraid of leaning on the walls, I was afraid they might fall over my head. So, I carefully touched them, until I found my way to the door using what’s left of my memory struck by old age and fear. However, my will to stay alive was stronger,” he added. 

More than 46,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, in the Eastern Mediterranean earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria. Across Syria, the number of deaths has reached 6000. According to the United Nations, 8.8 million people have been affected by the earthquake in Syria. 

You can imagine what it’s been like, for the disabled, to witness such a natural disaster that goes beyond comprehension and expectations. Khaled, who finally managed to go out into the street, challenging himself and his disability, describes his feeling: “As if it were judgment day; everybody was running for their lives.”

Even though he couldn’t see anything with his own eyes, the sounds were enough to paint a complete picture of horror. Until now, Khaled refuses to sleep under the roof of his house that survived the earthquake.

Horror Not Over

The situation has been no different to Zainab, a paraplegic young woman in her twenties living on the second floor of a three-storey building in Jindires.

Zainab managed to survive the earthquake that hit the area, but she’s still so horrified that she still has trouble sleeping. 

Zainab woke up to her bed shaking. She heard her mum calling out to her younger siblings so that they’d go down to the building’s lobby, thinking it was an air-strike or a shelling. Yet, she was unable to move due to the paraplegia.

As the second quake struck, her family went downstairs to the lobby leaving her alone in her room. 

“I didn’t think I’d make it. I was picturing people screaming, scary ghost voices, and all those destruction scenes we knew from cartoons. Everything was indescribably scary. The kitchen roof fell down, and the dark started to swallow everything. Dust got into my eyes and nose, and I thought I was going to suffocate. I screamed at the top of my voice, until I thought my throat was leaving my body. But, there was no answer. Everyone was gone, and I was left alone,” she said in Kurdish and Arabic combined. 

Zainab spent 10 hours under the rubble, until her father managed to get her out, with the help of a rescue team, physically unscathed. However, she has nightmares all night long. “There’s no light at the shelter where we’re staying,” her mother explains. “Her father bought a small flashlight to use at night. But we can’t sleep once it’s out. And even if we do, we wake up to Zainab screaming”.

The situation has been no different to Zainab, a paraplegic young woman in her twenties living on the second floor of a three-storey building in Jindires.

Zainab managed to survive the earthquake that hit the area, but she’s still so horrified that she still has trouble sleeping. 

Zainab woke up to her bed shaking. She heard her mum calling out to her younger siblings so that they’d go down to the building’s lobby, thinking it was an air-strike or a shelling. Yet, she was unable to move due to the paraplegia.

As the second quake struck, her family went downstairs to the lobby leaving her alone in her room. 

“I didn’t think I’d make it. I was picturing people screaming, scary ghost voices, and all those destruction scenes we knew from cartoons. Everything was indescribably scary. The kitchen roof fell down, and the dark started to swallow everything. Dust got into my eyes and nose, and I thought I was going to suffocate. I screamed at the top of my voice, until I thought my throat was leaving my body. But, there was no answer. Everyone was gone, and I was left alone,” she said in Kurdish and Arabic combined. 

Zainab spent 10 hours under the rubble, until her father managed to get her out, with the help of a rescue team, physically unscathed. However, she has nightmares all night long. “There’s no light at the shelter where we’re staying,” her mother explains. “Her father bought a small flashlight to use at night. But we can’t sleep once it’s out. And even if we do, we wake up to Zainab screaming”.

The situation has been no different to Zainab, a paraplegic young woman in her twenties living on the second floor of a three-storey building in Jindires.

Zainab managed to survive the earthquake that hit the area, but she’s still so horrified that she still has trouble sleeping. 

Zainab woke up to her bed shaking. She heard her mum calling out to her younger siblings so that they’d go down to the building’s lobby, thinking it was an air-strike or a shelling. Yet, she was unable to move due to the paraplegia.

As the second quake struck, her family went downstairs to the lobby leaving her alone in her room. 

“I didn’t think I’d make it. I was picturing people screaming, scary ghost voices, and all those destruction scenes we knew from cartoons. Everything was indescribably scary. The kitchen roof fell down, and the dark started to swallow everything. Dust got into my eyes and nose, and I thought I was going to suffocate. I screamed at the top of my voice, until I thought my throat was leaving my body. But, there was no answer. Everyone was gone, and I was left alone,” she said in Kurdish and Arabic combined. 

Zainab spent 10 hours under the rubble, until her father managed to get her out, with the help of a rescue team, physically unscathed. However, she has nightmares all night long. “There’s no light at the shelter where we’re staying,” her mother explains. “Her father bought a small flashlight to use at night. But we can’t sleep once it’s out. And even if we do, we wake up to Zainab screaming”.

"I screamed at the top of my voice, until I felt my throat coming out of my body, but there was no answer. Everyone left and I was left alone."

Died Under Rubble 

As for Khalil, a thirtysomething youngman, whom his brother describes as smiling and kind-hearted, couldn’t make it. He suffered from hemiparesis, caused by a cerebral atrophy he was born with. Civil defense teams didn’t get to him in time, and he suffocated under the roof of the quake-collapsed house. 

“Khalil, my mother and I live on the same floor. When the quake hit, we rushed out into the street as the building started to fall over our heads. I held my child and rushed downstairs. My mother and my wife followed. When I decided to go back and carry Khalil out, the building was already in ruins.

I was no longer looking at our house, it looked like a carton board run over by an elephant. I was blinded by fear; I didn’t know whether I should stay close to my family or put my life at risk and go carry Khalil out.

I was helpless, shouting out for help, but everyone was in a state of fear. No one answered. I passed out from all the screaming. Within the first seconds of daylight, we started to search and remove the rubble. By evening, we found Khalil dead,” Khalil’s older brother Rawad says.

Just as civil defense teams found Khalil, death did. Zainab is still struggling with nightmares at night. As for Khaled, the earthquake was the toughest thing he’s been through. 

The earthquake of February 6 was a tough experience for people with disabilities, especially that they had to go through it again when the second quake hit ـــــalbeit to lesser degrees. Many of them felt lonely and scared, as they have difficulty moving.

Others found it hard to make the right decision in such moments, let alone comprehend what was happening, due to their mental disabilities.