Hope, resources in short supply

GBNEWS24DESK//

As Syria’s earthquake rescue efforts near the one week mark, an unsettling silence blankets the area as a search dog sniffs around a flattened home in the coastal town of Jableh.

It has been hours since the last rescue, when two people were pulled from the rubble by rescuers with only the most basic equipment.

“There is no hope” for survivors, said Alaa Moubarak, the head of Jableh’s civil defence.

“Even so, with every step, we stop and scream: is anyone alive?”

The canine trained to detect life circles the area for 30 minutes and trots back without a single bark.

There are no more survivors.

This scene plays out almost daily in Jableh, where the hopes of finding anyone alive under the rubble are quickly vanishing amid a lack of resources.

Of the 52 residents of the five-storey building being searched, only 14 have made it out alive.

Jableh is located in Latakia, a province largely under government control and one of the worst hit by the earthquake.

Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake that struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Syrian border, killed nearly 3,600 in Syria.

In Latakia province alone, the quake has killed at least 638 people, according to local authorities.

The canine scavenging the rubble on Saturday is only one of a handful available in the region.

It was flown in by a 42-member search and rescue team from the United Arab Emirates, equipped with sensors, search cameras, special drills and fuel containers.

“If we had this kind of equipment, we would have saved hundreds of lives, if not more,” said Moubarak.

Other teams on the ground lack the means and advanced search equipment, often digging with nothing but their hands or shovels.

A supervisor of the rescue team said the chance of finding survivors at this point was so slim that emergency teams were permitted to use excavators and heavy machinery to clear the rubble.

“We are in stage four, which is an advanced stage of rescue operations, with most survivors already pulled out,” he said.

“But there is still a chance to find survivors.”