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The United Nations is asking for one billion dollars to help Turkey recover from last week's catastrophic earthquakes. The UN began a similar, but smaller appeal for neighbouring Syria on Tuesday. More than 42,000 people are known to have died in the disaster across both countries, but the situation in northern Syria is unbelievably difficult following 12 years of war and an already fragile infrastructure. Following the earthquakes it took more than a week for some rescue equipment to be sent to aid the White Helmets trying to locate people under the rubble in rebel-controlled territory. The bitter winter cold has made it even harder. From the US city of Chicago, Dr Zaher Sahloul is due to fly out to Syria where members of his organisation Global Med operate two hospitals in Idlib and Aleppo. He told Newsday what challenges clinicians face in north-west Syria. "Thousands are injured, now you have psychological trauma affecting everyone - including the healthcare workers and humanitarians... 12 years of war in this area, we had a cholera outbreak a weeks ago still going on, we had Covid the last three years... we had bombing of hospitals by Russia and the Syrian regime, chemical weapons used not far from the impact of the earthquake... so it's devastating circumstances. "It's trauma on top of trauma. Unfortunately, the humanitarian aid was very delayed. The first shipment that was allowed in happened eight days after the earthquake. There's always a golden hour after a major disaster - the first few hours that you have to everything possible to save lives - but the golden hour in north-west Syria happened 192 hours after the first hour." (Pic: A boy wounded in the earthquake holds his mother's hand in a hospital in Idlib governorate, Syria; Credit: Reuters)