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The crowd chants “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for God is Great. Volunteers and civil defense groups — themselves earthquake survivors — pull a boy out from the rubble alive in rebel-held northwestern Syria.
He’s the only member of his family to survive the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked parts of his country and Turkey on Monday.
A day earlier, another video went viral showing volunteer rescuers in a different part of the rebel-held territory saving a family — two girls, a boy and their father — from under the rubble some 40 hours after the quake.
The world knows of these rescues because of Karam Kellieh, a resident and photojournalist who lives in the opposition-controlled territory. The area is home to some 4 million people displaced by the decade-long Syrian civil war. Even before the earthquake, the area was devastated by bombs and poverty. Aid was often hampered by politics and the Syrian government.
“It’s devastation. Devastation for the women and children,” he said.
NPR was able to reach Kellieh on Wednesday by phone.
