Toronto woman loses seven family members in Syria earthquake

A Toronto woman says she's devastated after seven members of her family were killed in the massive earthquake that hit parts of Syria and Turkey earlier this week.

Aya Hammoud, who came to Canada as a refugee in 2017, says her grandfather, his wife, her four cousins and their mother died when the quake destroyed their apartment building in the Syrian city of Harem, near the country's border with Turkey.

Hammoud, 24, says rescue teams have recovered the bodies of her grandfather and his wife, but the bodies of her cousins, who were all under the age of 13, and their mother remain under the rubble.

She says an aunt and her children who lived nearby managed to escape their home, as did her mother and siblings, who live in a different city.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by several powerful aftershocks, ravaged parts of southeastern Turkey and northwest Syria, killing more than 19,300 people and destroying thousands of buildings.

Winter weather and damage to roads and airports have hampered the response to the earthquake in a region already contending with the repercussions of more than a decade of civil war in Syria.