No tents, no aid, nothing: Why Syrians feel forgotten

Those living here on the Syrian side may have been displaced by the country's more than decade-old civil war. But they could also be survivors of the earthquake. Catastrophes overlap in Syria.

The earthquake, untroubled by international borders, has brought havoc to both countries. But the international relief effort has been thwarted by checkpoints. In southern Turkey, thousands of rescue workers with heavy lifting gear, paramedics and sniffer dogs have jammed the streets, and are still working to find survivors. In this part of opposition-held north-west Syria, none of this is going on.

I had just crossed the border from four days in the city of Antakya, Turkey, where the aid response is a cacophony - ambulance sirens blare all night long, dozens of earth movers roar and rip apart concrete 24 hours a day. Among the olive groves in the village of Bsania, in Syria's Idlib province, there's mostly silence.

The homes in this border area were newly built. Now more than 100 have gone, turned to aggregate and a ghostly white dust which gusts across the farmland. As I climb over the chalky remains of the village, I spot a gap in the ruin. Inside, a pink-tiled bathroom sits perfectly preserved.

The earthquake swallowed Abu Ala's home, and claimed the lives of two of his children.