Our team was in Aleppo as civilians and emergency services worked tirelessly to rescue survivors in the immediate aftermath of a 7.7m earthquake that killed thousands and displaced millions of Syrians.

Early on February 6, southern Turkey and northern Syria were hit by a massive 7.7m earthquake. Over 1600 deaths were reported in Syria’s northern region within the first 24 hours after the incident, with that number expected to continue to grow in the days that followed. The current death toll for this tragic incident is presently believed to be over 41,000, with 5,801 Syrians losing their lives alongside 35,418 deaths in Turkey.

The quake devastated Aleppo’s vital infrastructure, such as hospitals and safe water pipelines, creating a humanitarian crisis in a city that has already lived through more than a decade of civil war. UN officials have stated that the disaster has rendered around 5.3 million Syrians homeless, including 200,000 in Aleppo alone. Furthermore, a report from ReliefWeb has suggested that the lack of access to clean drinking water and a large concentration of displaced people in emergency shelters could exacerbate the spread of waterborne diseases like cholera, which was already on the rise in this part of Syria prior to the disaster.

This video shows how we verified the footage we received from Aleppo in the two days immediately following this devastating earthquake as the city struggled to cope with the massive scale of displacement and destruction that it caused.