In Syria, churches come together to give sanctuary to earthquake survivors.
(Photo: Getty/iStock)"Death and grey dust were everywhere you can see," says Leyla Samar. "Death surrounding me. Buildings flattened."
Speaking over a disrupted connection, Leyla, a food aid worker with Open Doors' Centres of Hope in Aleppo, struggled to find the words for what she saw as she entered the city.
"People just standing in the streets by their cars," she says. "They say, 'This car, this is my home now.'"
11 years of bombing and shelling in Syria's civil war left the city of Aleppo with cracked, unstable masonry and a crumbling infrastructure. Social media footage shot during the quake - verified by the BBC – shows whole apartment blocks swaying and collapsing as families run screaming from beneath them.
Eyewitnesses now describe a paralysis of terror in the city. CT.
