How did the earthquakes in Turkey destroy the city of Antakya?

February 23, 2023 at 8:05 PM EST

The center of Antakya shows the total devastation of the city in the aftermath of the February 6th earthquake. (Video: TWP, Photo: Sloan George/TWP)

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Antakya has become a ghost town.

A thriving modern city of nearly 400,000 people–and the cradle of Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman history–now belongs to birds and earth-moving machines.

The two massive earthquakes of February 6 spread destruction across southern Turkey, but the devastation in Antakya was evident. The view from the night sky shows how dark a vibrant city has become.

Featured areas

Night lights show

visible from space

satellite images

It appears that Antioch is going

Follow the dark

Earthquake

Source: NASA Black Marble

Janice Kay Chen/The Washington Post

Featured areas

Night lights show

visible from space

satellite images

It appears that Antioch is going

Follow the dark

Earthquake

Source: NASA Black Marble

Janice Kay Chen/The Washington Post

Featured areas

Night lights show

visible from space

satellite images

It appears that Antioch is going

Follow the dark

Earthquake

Source: NASA Black Marble

Janice Kay Chen/The Washington Post

Featured areas

Night lights show

visible from space

satellite images

It appears that Antioch is going

Follow the dark

Earthquake

Source: NASA Black Marble

Janice Kay Chen/The Washington Post

Even more surprising is the feeling of abandonment—as countless lives came to a sudden halt—as the survivors fled the city with whatever they could carry, leaving their passports in the drawer, family photos on the wall, and laundry hanging on the row.

“Antakya my home,” the laments go. “Antioch is over.”

The Turks say that Kurtulus Street was the first street in history to be lit up at night. It has survived at all times into modern times, and is a shopping district full of antique shops, restaurants, and homes.

At one end of the street is Habib-i Neccar, one of the oldest mosques in Anatolia, now in ruins. At the other end is St. Pierre’s Church, hundreds of years old when Christian Crusaders oversaw an expansion in the early 12th century. A staircase was damaged in the earthquakes, but the stone face of the church was unscathed.

On the floor outside a boutique hotel whose rooms are named after Hittite kings and Greek gods, are the vestiges of a past life: illustrated notes of glandular tumors, a battered jean jacket, and a bowl of baby food.

All was eerily quiet until Mustafa Uğur emerged from the apartment building carrying a cardboard box.

‘Look at this,’ he said, pulling a dove out of the box. ‘It’s beautiful.’ “I came here to help my old uncle and take his bath to a safe place.”

Ugur looked up at the roof where an old man stood looking down, not an uncle but a friend. The young man explained that the bathroom keeper feared that his building might continue to collapse.

So we decided to evacuate the birds.

Even the buildings still standing in Antakya have cracks that snake through bedrooms and kitchens. The curtains swayed in the breeze through the broken windows and holes in the wall. The seemingly intact tower blocks stand feet from other buildings that have collapsed into mounds of powder and twisted metal.

Sometimes, it was the delicate items that escaped. A bunch of sauces and vinegars fell out of the fridge. Expired Georgian passports and a set of embellished hair clips were hidden securely in a drawer. A jar without a lid, still intact, spilled a fine green powder, to which was pasted a handwritten note: “Nane”, Turkish for mint.

On some streets, soldiers stood guard to prevent looting. They crowded around makeshift fires, shivering from the cold. I look at the empty apartments.

Colorful clothes were strewn on street corners across the city, covered in a film of dust. It was donated to the earthquake victims, but only a few residents were left to claim it. Most of the people still here were search and rescue teams.

Fely and Wasim Baghi were the exception. Their couch looked out of place, and their belongings were intentionally clean and tidy sitting on the rubble. They waited on the long, quiet road, behind them their music store, facing a once-immaculate garden.

“This place was so beautiful,” said Philly, a music teacher.

The neighborhood was a new neighborhood, and most of the buildings were new. Everything was fine, everything was supposed to be beautiful.”

He pointed to the pale greenery across the road. “The children used to play in this garden. The parents of my students used to have a break in this garden when I was teaching lessons.”

He opened his piano and hit the keys. “My children’s prints are still on the ivory,” he said, with tears falling. “Now we will have new students, and we will teach other children.”

They, too, were leaving the city, for Adana, where his parents had a house waiting for them. But first, he said, he was going to take his wife on holiday.

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