Some weeks ago, life in Türkiye and Syria came to a standstill when earthquakes of 7.8 and 7.5 on the Richter scale hit the area on the early hours of 6th of February, 2023.

Recently, my wifey and I were at Madrid Airport sending off my dearest sister-in-law back to Malaysia, and we managed to have a chat with the Royal Jordanian crew that operated the first leg of her journey. The quakes were felt as far as Amman, where the Captain woke up because of the tremors, about 600 km away from the area. If you can feel the earth move that far away, you can only imagine how it must have felt nearer to the epicentre.

Since the initial 7.8 magnitude earthquake, there have been many quakes of over magnitude 6 in the area, and these aftershocks continue to wreak havoc, for the buildings, and for the people and animals.

These constant and continuing quakes have forced people to flee their homes and stay outside because of the fear of their homes collapsing and facing the harsh wintry conditions of the area.

To make matters worse, the roads to these areas have sustained heavy damages, and because of that and the cut communications to affected areas, the initial information was difficult to get. Information about the magnitude of the destruction can also be seen from ESA’s Instagram page, as they have published images from Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite passing over the city of Antakya.

Since then, we have learned that in Türkiye alone, over 41,000 people have perished and over 6,000 in Syria. This number is still going to rise as over 385,000 apartments and buildings were destroyed and damaged during the initial quakes. Now that the quakes continue daily, how well do you think the structure of the buildings already damaged is going to hold?

We Must Act Now!

For me, one of the most impactful and touching images of this disaster was the image of a father sitting by the collapsed building, holding her daughter’s hand even after his daughter had passed away. My eyes tear up now even now as I’m writing these words.

So we must help. We must.

For almost two decades, I have been supporting the work of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and I continue to do so in this case as well. They lost two staff members, and their staff have lost family members in the quakes as well.

If you are not in a position to offer monetary support, there are so many other ways you can contribute. You can start by sharing this post in your own social media channels as it will create awareness and exposure.