Vigil for earthquake victims and pleas for relief
of the Bay Area Syrian and Turkish communities gather tonight sending one message. Please help earthquake victims. Good evening and thanks for joining us this Saturday night. I'm Christina Rendon. Six days after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake rescue teams in Turkey and Syria say their work to free survivors trapped under the rubble is not over. Tonight people in the Bay Area remember the more than 28,000 people who have died and they plead for people across the globe to help survivors.
Gate to views Alyssa Harrington joining us now in the newsroom after speaking with some of them at a vigil. Christina was a very emotional vigil. Some of the people I talked to have family members and friends who were killed or who are missing. They want to lift the community up during this dark time and are asking for support in these rescue efforts. A candlelight vigil at San Francisco's Union Square honored the victims of the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria and aimed to raise awareness about the long-term needs of both countries. Time is really urgent now to help survivors and people who are still in the rubble, but also aid is really needed to those who are injured. The event was organized by volunteers with the American Coalition for Syria.
Many of them have family in the impacted region like Heba Masri. They actually just dug out my uncle yesterday and his wife and it's still really really hard to see all the pictures and everything coming out knowing that some people are still down there. Among pictures shared at the vigil this one of a 10-year-old boy and a picture of the building he was in that crumbled. Maya Felawhys his cousin she said his father was able to get the younger children out of the home right before it collapsed. Shaza his wife and Hamoudi the 10-year-old son were still behind him and the building was collapsing so they were under the rubble. He was hopeful that rescue workers would be able to get to them but that didn't happen. Felawhys said her family members have been displaced numerous times.
She said people have been left without shelter in sub-freezing conditions. She urged people to support the white helmets who are at the front lines of earthquake disaster relief in Syria. They were the first responders in northwestern Syria to try to save lives from under the rubble. If they had more machinery more resources to reach more people I think more people would have been alive today. The death toll from the 7.8 earthquake has now risen to more than 20,000 people in Turkey in Syria. Volunteers say they hope the international community steps up.
They encourage donating to crisis support on the ground and want the U.S. to organize deliveries of medical and warm shelter equipment for those who have lost their homes. You're talking about people who have lost everything from their homes to family members to their entire livelihoods. Volunteers call the situation in northwestern Syria a long-term crisis, one that started even before this earthquake. This community there was already completely ravished by 12 years of war and continued bombings by both Russia and the Assad regime and now this completely annihilated whatever infrastructure was left. Volunteers say the white helmets also known as the Syria civil defense need money for fuel and larger equipment to help search through that rubble.
Reporting live I'm Alyssa Harrington KTVU Fox 2 News. I'm Alyssa. Thank you.
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