It was all a matter of three seconds. The young woman, the daughter of the building’s doorman, was coming out with her family from the ground floor. They were all out of it when a stone fell on top of her, the 17-year-old girl. She fainted, recalls a neighbor who saw the scene because he had had a little more time to get out of her house. It was then that the building collapsed on top of the young woman.
“Everything happened in nothing. It was horrible. The family was a few meters from her, but only she was trapped. I don’t know her name, but I do know that now they are trying to get her out from under the rubble,” recalls this neighbor. of Adanaone of the southern cities of Turkey affected by the earthquakes on Monday. His house is still standing but it is now off-limits territory: no one in the areas affected by the earthquake dares to return to their home. Tens of thousands have passed this night in the opento temperatures below zero.
Most, however, don’t care. There are more important things. “Hey, and have you heard if they are going to take someone else out soon?” another neighbor asks the first. “It’s just that my friend has his brother and his fiancée in there.” The first neighbor replies that he has no idea, that he only hears the screams of the rescue teams and, above all, the roar of the excavators, which, accompanied by a crane, search for whatever may be left in the rubble.
According to the Turkish government, more than 5,000 buildings have been completely destroyed because of the earthquake. Of them, the majority have succumbed in the provinces of hatai, kahramanmaras and Gaziantep. In Adana, where these residents wait in a desolation already close to resignation, the collapsed buildings have been few. But there have been.
“The big problem is that the building has fallen when everyone was running down the stairs. And in such a large 16-story building, the stairs are in the center. This has meant that everyone has been trapped inside And the rescue teams are having a very difficult time getting anything out. I don’t think they managed to get anyone out alive.“says the first neighbor.
almost all dead
“No, yes they have. First thing in the morning they were able to get two alive. All the others, I think 15, were already dead,” interrupted another man. And, then, how many can still be inside? “Ugh, I don’t know… many. Families lived there, older people. I’m afraid they’re all dead,” he replies.
All around them, as the rescue efforts continue, women hug each other and cry as they share the blankets they receive from the emergency services; men with red eyes from holding back their tears smoke non-stop. Some argue in loose conversations that, due to the tension of waiting, sometimes come to blows. But few speak. They all look in one direction: towards the debris. The wait can last days.
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Meanwhile, many of the worst affected areas reach Adana, where the situation is somewhat better. “I can’t take it anymore. I’ve been running up and down since four in the morning. I can’t take it anymore, brother. I need to eat something,” says one of these newcomers, who has sat down with his blood and in-laws to have dinner in what it is probably the first meal of the day.
So, the older brother takes the gallons and, exhausted, repeats four times what they will all eat. The waiter looks at him; he has understood it the first time. But the man, covered in bruises, keeps repeating: “one soup, three soups, two kebabs, one that is big, one and a half portions, one soup…”. The waiter leaves and the older brother, hands on his face, sinks: “I still can’t believe we’re all alive.”