One week ago, people in Turkey and northern Syria were having an ordinary night that came

home from work and shared meals with their families.

Parents put their children to bed.

In the Syrian town of Jindaris, Zakaria Tabakh curled his youngest boy Abdul Haddi, who

was two.

He lay Abdul Haddi on the little boy's bed and then slipped out to join his wife in their

bedroom.

Tabakh's wife was dead beside him, killed by chunks of their ceiling that fell on

the couple's bed.

Their home had partially collapsed after an earthquake hit in the very early morning hours

of February 6th.

Tabakh ran to his children's room and pulled out five-year-old Abdul Ahab alive, but he

found two-year-old Abdul Haddi motionless under the debris of a collapsed wall.

He had died where he slept.

I don't know how I got out.

God must have pulled me out, Tabakh said.

Outside their homes, similar scenes were unfolded.

Neighbors in night dresses running through the rain in the darkness, calling for relatives

in the rubble of collapsed homes.

There was another strong quake, and many aftershocks, Tabakh says few came to mourn with him

and his surviving five-year-old son.

People are so busy with their own cases, so nobody is half the time to help the others.

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