In the early morning of Feb. 6, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the calm brisk air of southeast Türkiye and northwest Syria. According to CNBC, the death toll surpassed 46,000 (still counting) with tens of thousands injured and displaced. The ongoing 12-year conflict in Syria and the outpouring of refugees as a consequence have made this disaster into a nightmare. After two weeks of searching for survivors buried under the collapsed buildings, rescue teams, and humanitarian workers are slowly shifting focus to rehabilitating the lost cities and providing food and shelter to the cities’ residents.
 The earthquake’s epicenter was near a densely populated area in Türkiye with Syrian refugees living in haphazard buildings that are already weakened by the prolonged civil war. The death toll from this disaster is exacerbated by the feeble structure of soft-story buildings that are highly vulnerable to external impact. A soft-story building has multiple floors and an open plan at the bottom which people use as a garage or shop. This type of building is common in countries like India, Pakistan, and Türkiye as it provides a compact solution to house a highly dense population. However, a soft-story building has relatively brittle structural support in the bottom for the heavyweight that it supports. When there is an external force, the entire building destabilizes and eventually falls to the ground in what is described as a pancake collapse. To make these buildings resilient to seismic events, they would have to be retrofitted with steel reinforcements, but according to the World Bank, 6.7 million residential buildings require structural retrofitting or reconstruction at an estimated cost of 465 billion USD.
 There was also widespread looting as law enforcement failed to respond. The Turkish government has mobilized military armed forces to not only prevent looting but also to ensure the safety of the residents in unstable areas. Some children are now vulnerable to exploitation and abuse as they are separated from their family and are unable to return to school. The cold wintery weather has also exposed residents to hypothermia as they struggle to survive in sub-zero temperatures. South Korea, amongst many other countries around the world, is sending humanitarian rescue teams and financial aid to speed up the country’s recovery.