When she felt the first tremors of the earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey last week, Umm Kanaan woke her three children up and moved them to a small closet in her room, where they all found refuge, along with a collection of family photos and documents.
The earthquake leveled their apartment building in the coastal Syrian city of Jableh, killing almost all of their neighbors.
The mother and her three children, whose apartment was on the fourth floor, survived with their precious bag of memories.
Kanaan’s mother and daughter were tucked into a space in the closet no more than a meter wide, while her eldest daughter and third son were in a corner between the closet and her bed, using pillows to protect themselves when the building collapsed.
Memories are all that remain of the doomed house
Memories are all that remain of the doomed house
She said she was still shocked and wondered: “Is it possible that the building fell? Is this a dream?” Then she tried to move but could not.
Umm Kanaan confirmed that “divine power” made her leave this small space inside her closet empty.
Her husband, who works as an army officer, survived, as he was not at home when the 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck, killing more than 5,000 people in Syria and 35,000 in Turkey.
Trapped under the rubble, the mother and her children called for help from rescuers, who removed the debris from above them.
And she said, “They were trying to pull the roof off the closet, and thank God, they took the children out fine, and they brought me and the little girl out fine,” adding that she kept holding the bag and took it out with her.
Their house turned into rubble and all their furniture and belongings were destroyed, so they headed to a relative’s house with a bag of memories, their last possessions.
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Umm Kanaan said she felt uncomfortable in the hours leading up to the earthquake, so she prepared the bag the day before and filled it with family certificates, identity cards, and her marriage certificate, as well as photo albums and video clips of her wedding.
Fighting back tears as she flipped through an album of photos and pulled out a video of her wedding, she said she had been living in this house for about 8 years and had never thought of storing things this way before.
Recalling the moment she emerged from the rubble with a suitcase, she said she felt “victorious”. “I really didn’t want more than this. Memories mean everything to me.”
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