The tents are almost touching the border wall that separates Syria and Turkey. They could, however, be earthquake survivors. In Syria, disasters overlap. The earthquake, which was unaffected by international borders, wreaked havoc on both countries. Thousands of rescue workers, paramedics, and sniffer dogs have clogged the streets in southern Turkey and are still looking for survivors. None of this is happening in this part of opposition-held northwest Syria.

I'd just crossed the border from Antakya, Turkey, where the aid response is a cacophony - ambulance sirens blaring all night, and dozens of earth movers roar and rip up concrete 24 hours a day. There is mostly silence among the olive groves in the village of Bsania, in Syria's Idlib province. The homes in this border area are brand new. More than 100 have now vanished, reduced to aggregate and ghostly white dust that blows across the farmland. I notice a gap in the ruin as I climb over the chalky remains of the village. Inside, a pink-tiled bathroom has been meticulously preserved.

The earthquake destroyed Abu Ala's home and killed two of his children."The bedroom is there, that's my house," he says, pointing to a pile of rubble. "My wife, daughter and I were sleeping here - Wala', the 15-year-old girl, was at the edge of the room towards the balcony. A bulldozer was able to find her, [so] I took her and buried her."

He and his wife clung to olive trees in the dark as aftershocks rocked the hillside. The Syrian Civil Defence Force, also known as the White Helmets, did what it could with pickaxes and crowbars in opposition-held areas. The British government funds the rescuers, but they lack modern rescue equipment. When Abu Ala' describes the search for his missing 13-year-old son, Ala', he breaks down.
"We dug until the evening the next day. May God give those men strength. They went to great lengths to find my son. He buried the boy alongside his sister.

Bsania wasn't much, but it was home. Rows of modern apartment buildings, with balconies facing out across the Syrian countryside into Turkey. Abu Ala' describes it as a thriving community. "We had nice neighbours, nice people. We've received nothing but God's mercy until now.

As we walk away, he asks if I have a tent. I expect to find the White Helmets looking for survivors when I meet them. However, it is too late. Ismail al Abdullah is exhausted by the effort and what he sees as the world's contempt for the Syrian people. According to him, the international community has blood on its hands. "After more than 120 hours, we stopped looking for survivors," he says. "We tried everything we could to save our people, but we couldn't." We called for immediate action and assistance from the first hour.
hey were just saying, 'We are with you,' that was all.

As we leave, he asks if I have a tent. I meet up with the White Helmets, expecting to find them searching for survivors. But it is too late. Ismail al Abdullah is exhausted by the effort and what he sees as the world's disregard for the Syrian people. He claims that the international community has blood on its hands. "We stopped looking for survivors after more than 120 hours," he says. "We did everything we could to save our people, but we couldn't."

From the first hour, we called for urgent action, for urgent help.
They were just saying, 'We are with you', nothing else. too late.

Children remove rubble in Harem in the absence of international rescue teams. A man and two boys carefully salvage animal feed onto a blanket by using a car jack to pry apart the collapsed remains of a building. Syria's life is not cheaper, but it is more precarious.

The day is coming to an end, and I must depart. I cross the border back into Turkey and soon find myself stuck in a traffic jam of ambulances, construction equipment, and other aid response vehicles.

My phone vibrates with a message from a Turkish rescuer informing me that his team discovered a woman alive after 132 hours buried beneath her home. As darkness falls in Syria, there is only silence.