In post-earthquake Turkey, hope for families is fading

After her sister and niece were trapped under the rubble of their apartment building during the earthquake in southern Turkey last week, Cigdem Ulgen rushed to the site to try to rescue them.

She had no means of digging into the metal and concrete rock that remained from the building in the badly damaged city of Adiyaman, so she settled in the street with her mother and siblings waiting, which became more painful with the passing of time, and then the days. , she continued.

As rescue crews dug through the rubble, the family sifted through chairs and a sofa. Volunteers tossed metal fire pits, water bottles, lentil soup, hand cream, cigarettes, and oranges. More than a week later, they were still there, waiting for news that had yet to reach them.

“We are always here. We sit. We try to sleep. We eat what the people give us, not the government,” said Ms. Ulgen, 38. “We won’t leave until they do.”

Nine days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake and strong aftershock occurred on February 6, death has become a part of daily life across the quake zone, with more than 40,000 dead in Turkey and Syria and the death toll expected to rise.

During that time, Turkish media broadcast continuous coverage of the daring and unlikely rescues, including an 18-year-old man who was pulled from the rubble alive in Adiyaman on Tuesday, 198 hours after the earthquake. But because such preservations are increasingly scarce, families across the disaster area are hanging around near the wrecks waiting to find their loved ones.

The impromptu vigils are simple, painful assemblies. Families perch on palisades, perch on rooftops and perch on nearby rubble to watch excavators cut through the concrete. They forage salvaged wood from wrecked cupboards and shutters into campfires to stave off the winter cold and brew tea over the flames.

While they wait, rescue crews consult them to find out how many people were in a particular building when it toppled like the Jenga Tower, or where the roof was broken to get to the bedroom of a missing woman.

When bodies are exhumed, often mutilated or decomposing, they stand still while body bags are briefly unwrapped to identify relatives—by their faces, missing teeth, fungal fingernails, or earrings—so they can be laid to rest.

Many families are angry with the government and say they did not see rescue teams until two or three days after the earthquake, when the window to save survivors was shrinking fast. Confusion ensued, they said, as rescue crews, both Turkish and international, came and went, some lacking the equipment to do the job, others leaving before it was finished.

As they waited, their hopes were dimmed.

“First, we came thinking we could save them,” said Ibrahim Savas, Mrs. Ulgen’s brother. Then we thought maybe we can save them, but we are injured. Now we only hope to recover their bodies.”

Deadly earthquake in Turkey and Syria An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale on February 6 with its epicenter in Gaziantep, Turkey has become one of the deadliest natural disasters of this century.

He and two of his sisters, who also lived elsewhere in Turkey, rushed to Adiyaman after the earthquake, and were amazed to find no one searching their sister’s building.

They soon learn that the rescue team has already worked in the next building and left. The day after the earthquake, workers recovered the bodies of Yakup Tas, a member of parliament for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, and members of his family, state media reported. But when Mrs. Ulgen arrived at the site that evening, rescue workers were nowhere to be found.

“They came with everything they had for the legislator,” said Mrs. Ulgen. “Then they left.”

A week later, the family was still waiting when rescuers laid three black body bags containing four bodies on the nearby sidewalk. A family that was encamped beside them approached, turning up their noses and mouths, to peek at the corpses, wailing over what they saw.

Half an hour later, the other family was gone, the once warm fire reduced to ashes, and their vigil came to an end. Mrs. Ulgen and her relatives continued to wait.

At another site, relatives of the missing sat on bricks, boards and blankets while rescue teams dug in three locations for 12 bodies believed to still be under the rubble.

“We usually stay until 4 in the morning, then we go to nearby tents or cars to sleep for two hours and come back,” said a soldier who was waiting for the remains of three relatives and gave only his first name, Yassin, in keeping with the order. Army protocol. “We don’t eat much.”

Workers carried a body bag from the rubble.

“Layla,” a relative said, identifying the woman who was containing it, and sobs broke out from the crowd. A second body came shortly after.

Around Adiyaman, residents pulled out the belongings of what was left of their homes: blankets, photo albums, carpets, a pair of jeans worn by a dead brother, a car key and a folding knife in his pocket.

Near a public clock that had froze at 4:17 a.m., the moment the quake struck, men rummaging through a hole in the ruins pulled out dusty but otherwise intact bottles of liquor—more than three crates’ worth.

Mustafa Gokhan Demir said that the ground floor of the building housed his family’s liquor store. They planned to clean the bottles, hoping to sell them elsewhere.

He said, “It’s all we have left.”

As dusk fell, dozens of workers from Turkish and international crews worked on another sprawling site, where many buildings collapsed into one another, leaving mountains of debris. A group of Turkish miners are clearing timber pilings over one pit. To prevent entry into the caverns, a Bangladeshi man in red and gray camouflage has cut a tile floor. Groups from China and Sudan rested amid campfires, and two rescuers from Virginia watched.

They deployed sniffer dogs, thermal cameras, six-meter “snake” cameras and sensitive equipment to detect sounds deep in the rubble, said Peter Slashta, a member of a Czech team. Within a week, he said, they found about 50 people. Only three were alive. Didn’t expect there to be more.

Sitting by a fire in an oil barrel near the ruins, Mehmet Tas, a construction engineer, said he had rushed to Adiyaman, his hometown, from Istanbul right after the earthquake. He’s been camping with relatives ever since, waiting for his sister, her husband, his mother, and the couple’s three grandchildren, ages 4, 5, and 6.

More than a week after the earthquake, only children know the fate of the children.

As men lit bonfires in preparation for nightfall and the Czech team erected a glowing ball on a pole to light up the rubble, Mr Tass said he hoped some families would stay in the city to help rebuild and wondered when schools would open.

He said that the people who left felt “out of sea” elsewhere, and he said he hoped the men would meet again in the city’s cafés in the evening to share news from their days.

But for now, all he could do was wait.

“I have three people there,” he said, pointing to the ruins. “They haven’t come out yet.”

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