Turkey-Syria earthquake: Cook County doctor returns home after witnessing devastation

COOK COUNTY - Calls continue for international help more than two weeks after a devastating earthquake rocked Turkey and Syria.

The magnitude 7.8 quake was one of the strongest to strike the area in more than a century.

FOX 32 Chicago spoke with a Palos Heights doctor who just returned from the area. Unimaginable devastation is what he found.

Nearly 46,000 people in the two countries were killed. Tens of thousands of people were hurt.

Dr. Mufaddal Hamadeh says the biggest need for medical equipment is dialysis machines and catheters, because the crush injuries are causing kidney failure in patients.

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He was specifically stationed in Syria, near the Turkish border. That area has been decimated by civil war for the past 10 years, and there is little to no medical infrastructure.

"Our team we arrived there the first day to the hospital, we were all crying we were all very affected with what we've seen. Children in the hospital with crushed injuries and they lost their whole families and unfortunately everybody seems to be numb, even the victims just tells you what the population there has gotten used to," said Dr. Hamadeh.

He said the number one need is shelter. Many people are still living in the streets.

As his group left, another group of international doctors arrived with $1.2 million worth of medical equipment.