Buildings collapsing, children thrown from balconies in a last-ditch rescue attempt, and the elderly and children forced to spend hours in the snow without a coat. There is a total state of panic in the earthquake-hit areas of Turkey and Syria, eyewitnesses and the victims’ families say.
‘The first question you ask is: who is alive and who is no longer alive?’, says Hamza Dal emotionally. From the Netherlands he has been trying all day to reach relatives in his native village.
“Six family members have died so far. Uncles, aunts, cousins and second cousins. My entire hometown has been destroyed. Some family members have been pulled out alive from under the rubble, others are still under it. I have no idea how they are doing and if their homes can be reached at all with all the aftershocks.”
Attacked in their sleep
In Syria and Turkey, millions of people were rocked in their sleep from Sunday to Monday night by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale.
For comparison, the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010 had a magnitude of 7.0. The epicenter of the first quake was about 26 kilometers northwest of Gaziantep, a border town in southern Turkey with two million inhabitants.
At 13:24 local time, a new strong quake was reported in Central Turkey, with a magnitude of 7.5. The death toll from the earthquake stood at 3,700 late Monday evening. Many people are still under the rubble. The death toll is likely to continue to rise. Auxiliary troops from the Netherlands, among others, are on their way to the disaster area.
“I woke up because a wardrobe fell on me,” says Sevda Uz from the Turkish city of Gaziantep. “I tried to get up and walk to the door, but I could hardly do so due to the extreme shaking.” Climbing and clambering over all the overturned furniture, she finally got outside, where, according to her, everyone was “in total panic”.
“All I heard were sirens. Someone threw his child down from two floors. Another jumped off the balcony himself. Fortunately, they are unharmed, but it was terribly scary. It was raining and snowing in the meantime, but hardly anyone had a coat or shoes on,” she says, still shocked.
Snow and strong wind
It is currently cold in the disaster area, with temperatures dropping well below zero at night. The Turkish meteorological service has issued weather warnings in several provinces affected by the earthquake due to snow and strong winds.
After hours on the street, Sevda is now back in the house with her aunt and uncle. “With our coats on, because we are afraid that we will have to run out again at any moment due to another earthquake. As soon as anything starts to shake, we spend the rest of the night in the car.”
Leaving the city by car is not possible, Sevda explains. “Motorways have collapsed, buses don’t run and planes don’t fly. Even auxiliary troops come here with difficulty”, she sighs. “God knows how long it will all take.”
In the Netherlands you can only wait
“You can do nothing at all, except wait,” sighs Latife Yigitsoy from the Netherlands. Her father is in Kayseri, in the middle of Turkey, where the second earthquake was particularly felt. “Lamps shook; cracked in the walls. He has not slept a wink; neither do we.”
“He’s an old man, so he didn’t pull it out in the cold and snow. He packed his bag and charged his phone and left for a nearby village, where it is hopefully a bit safer.”
“I hope he arrives in the village in one piece. That is a best undertaking with all the holes in the road. I don’t dare to call him either, for fear that he will panic. We can’t just go there from the Netherlands either. We really have our hands in our hair.”