A Syrian woman living at a refugee centre in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon has spoken of her devastation and heartbreak to learn that three of her family members, including her mother, have died as a result of yesterday's earthquakes in Turkey.
Sabrina Dourmash's family were trying to escape their apartment in Aleppo when the building collapsed.
Syrian refugee families in Ballaghaderreen are desperately waiting for news of loved ones caught up in the disaster.
Ms Dourmash says she had been on a video call with her mother Mahdya just hours before she died.
Her brother and two of his children survived, but his wife and their two-year-old son perished.
Her friend Fayiz Alsani said Ms Dourmash’s brother told her that their mother was the first to wake when the earthquake began.
"She woke the whole family and said 'let's run, just leave the building'," he told RTÉ News.
"They started to run down the stairs. Unfortunately, some of the family didn't make it in time. Everything happened very quickly and the whole building collapsed on them."
Ms Dourmash lives in Ballaghaderreen with her husband Jamil and her one-year-old daughter, Natalie.
Her grief is raw and palpable, but through her tears she expresses desperation that many children remain trapped in unsafe buildings which were already unstable from 12 years of warfare.
She says it is a waiting game.
"I feel lucky that some of my family have survived but I wish I could be there for my brother's children to feed them and keep them warm in freezing temperatures," she said.
"It's just heartbreaking."
There are some 200 adults and children living in the former Abbeyfield Hotel in Ballaghaderreen.
They have fled warfare and the resulting humanitarian and economic crisis.
Now, they can only watch and wait from afar as the desperate search for survivors continues.
