‘Buried alive’: Syrians recount losing family in the earthquakes

Mahmoud Omar al-Ormi sits with his son Ahmad on the debris of their building in Atarib, northwest Syria. Al-Ormi lost his pregnant wife and four children to the earthquakes [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]

Atarib, Syria – When the first earthquake struck on February 6, heavily pregnant Sakhaa al-Mousa was jolted awake in her apartment. Before the 24-year-old had time to fathom what was going on, the three-storey building she and her family were in caved, trapping them underneath.

“I started screaming, hoping that someone outside could hear me,” she told Al Jazeera. “I could hear the rescuers but they couldn’t hear me. So I grabbed a rock and started banging it on one of the walls above me.”