“We were asleep when the earthquake struck. We started noticing the ground beginning to shake. I was barely able to gather my children and take them outside. Our apartment is on the ground floor. The walls collapsed,” recalls Umm Jaud in Lattakia Governorate, western Syria. She has been forced to leave her home, displaced for the second time in her life.

On 6 February at 4:17 am, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Syria and Türkiye, one of the most catastrophic the region has seen in about a century. The death toll continues to grow, and over 1.5 million people need shelter in Syria.

The situation in Syria was dire even before the earthquake, with 15.3 million people, 70 percent of the population, in need of humanitarian assistance. People who were already suffering have now been left homeless, and with no means to stay safe from the harsh elements.

The UN Syria Flash Appeal is calling for US$397.6 million to provide emergency assistance to 4.9 million people in most acute need over the next three months.

UNDP, as member of the UN country team, is working with local actors to respond to humanitarian needs through the provision of shelter, food, water and healthcare, deployment of specialized teams and equipment, and supporting assessments in affected areas for further risk from damaged housing and infrastructure.

In addition to the urgent humanitarian needs, it is clear from the magnitude of the disaster and the vulnerability of the people affected that recovery will be long and difficult.

 

UNDP is working with partners to ensure affected people are supported in this process. We are assessing the damage and scale of the crisis to provide a clearer understanding of immediate and longer-term recovery and development needs.

“We aim to make quick assessments of the damage that has occurred, so that we are able to quickly make sure that attention can be given to damaged buildings, to damaged infrastructure, and life can be brought back to some level of normalcy,” says Sudipto Mukerjee.

While this assessment takes place, UNDP is looking into supporting immediate needs that are critical following similar disasters. This includes supporting local level response coordination, data and analytics, and debris removal. The latter is critical to opening humanitarian corridors and paving the way for rehabilitation, access to services and injecting cash at the household level. 

We are using remote sensing/satellite imagery analysis to get a better overview of damages in the affected area.

In addition, UNDP is looking into swift rehabilitation of key infrastructure, such as health, education and water networks. The damage to water networks is causing multi-dimensional risks especially that cholera is still present.

We will be distributing small-scale energy and electricity solutions in shelters and key service locations in light of the power outages caused by the existing electricity and fuel crisis and exacerbated by the earthquake.

UNDP is also tapping into ongoing programmes to provide psycho-social support. UNDP has supported over 300 people in Aleppo, Lattakia, Hama, Rural Damascus, Damascus and Tartous with mental health and psychosocial support. 

“We will reach out and try to restore livelihoods as well. We will actually make sure that in doing all this, we are able to preserve social cohesion and peace. And most importantly, we will ensure that this community is brought back to given some level of hope to look into the future,” says Sudipto Mukerjee.