One year later, Türkiye earthquake survivors are struggling to rebuild their lives

A year later, those who survived and remain in Hatay province are still living under the impact of the disaster.

Hatay, Türkiye:

Abdullah Yanar planted flowers in front of his container house to make it look like a real home for his family, who have been living in temporary shelters in southern Turkey since last year's devastating earthquake.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake last February, the deadliest in modern Turkey, killed several of Yanar's relatives and damaged his apartment, forcing him, his wife, daughter and son to move first to a tent and then to one container house after another.

“Thank God we have a roof over our heads,” Yanar said at his home in Hatay, the province most affected by the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria. “But it is a bit difficult to live in a container with two children.” .

Yanar, a 38-year-old local authority worker, says that despite some rebuilding, restoring the historic regional capital Antakya will take a very long time.

Faced with unaffordable “real house” rents, and the unpredictability of water and electricity supplies in his 21-square-meter (226-square-foot) home, he feels less hopeful about his family’s future.

“I don't have any expectations. We don't enjoy life at all. But still, a thousand thanks to God,” he said.

The earthquake that occurred in the early hours of February 6 destroyed towns and parts of some cities in the southeast of the country. More than 53,000 people were killed in Turkey and about 6,000 in neighboring Syria, leaving millions homeless.

A year later, those who survived and remain in Hatay province are still living under the impact of the disaster.

Much of the province collapsed in the quake, but hundreds of destroyed buildings have not yet been demolished, and many of the two-thirds of Hatay's population who remained in the province now live in container homes.

In October, Yanar's family moved to another container house, which includes a small living room with an open kitchen, one bedroom and a bathroom. He says the four-fold jump in rents in the area means there is no option to move out.

In the same container city, Ali Riza and Sunay Gazaloglu sit on a sofa with their daughter Ella between them. The nine-year-old was the only one of her three daughters to survive when her house collapsed a year ago.

Ella plays with a red teddy bear without saying a word. She is afraid to enter buildings and does not go to her four-story school.

Ali Reda, who was seriously injured in his back when the earthquake struck, said: “We were a happy family before the earthquake. I had a job, and now I can no longer work after I underwent three surgeries.”

Currently, his family covers daily expenses with funding provided by the Turkish Red Crescent to the victims.

Disturbing memories

In the wake of the disaster, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government promised to rebuild 680,000 homes in 11 provinces over two years, including about 250,000 homes in Hatay. Officials unveiled the newest homes to families in the run-up to the first anniversary.

Residents say the container homes are generally warm enough at night. Other displaced residents ended up in slightly larger prefabricated houses with two bedrooms and a living room.

Among them is Gulcan Yilmaz, 47 years old, a mother of two children, who was miraculously rescued from the rubble of the eight-storey building five days after the earthquake.

“My feet and arms were hanging in the air,” she said when she was trapped under the rubble.

“When I freed my hand, I pulled out my hair that was stuck. Then my broken hand fell on my lap. I sat on a thin board for five days. I couldn't move my feet. The birds came, and I talked to them. To them there under the rubble.”

Yilmaz was later transferred to Adana Province by helicopter. When she opened her eyes in the intensive care unit, she saw that her legs had been amputated after contracting gangrene from the cold. She has since returned to Hatay to receive physical therapy to help fit her prosthetic legs, and after living in a tent, she moved in September to a prefabricated house in the Ekinci neighborhood of Antakya.

“In my eyes, this prefabricated house is a palace,” she said. “But I want to live in one of these new apartments that the government is building.”

Business dreams

Some earthquake survivors are still living in tents even though temperatures dropped to 4 degrees Celsius overnight.

In Samandag, a Mediterranean port city in the far south of Turkey, Özden Kar, 42, lives with her family and relatives in tents pitched outside the municipal government building, which was also damaged and is now made up of containers.

Carr says they spent the winter without a heater in tents provided by a benefactor. Authorities have referred them to a container city in Antakya, a 40-minute drive away, but they want to stay because the children's school and her husband's job as a livestock farmer are in Samandag.

“It's all here, I can't go to Antakya,” she said.

Twelve of Carr's relatives died in the earthquake. She said the family couldn't move into an apartment because of high rents — and a constant fear of the apartment's durability.

“My daughter is afraid at the slightest rattle,” she said. “We are all afraid.”

Nadira Kabaroglu, Kar's 75-year-old mother, suffers from asthma and has had to visit the doctor regularly since the earthquake. Toxic dust from collapsed buildings has given her asthma attacks, and she cannot leave her tent without wearing a mask.

Other tent residents spoke of their desire to stay close to relatives and familiar communities despite offers to build container homes elsewhere in Hatay.

In Antakya's historic Uzun Karasi Bazaar, some of whose buildings withstood the quake even as much of the city center collapsed, the economic pressures are now evident with a third of the once vital population and tourists gone.

“Tourists no longer visit Hatay and many locals have left the city or are living in container homes located on the outskirts of the city. It will take some time to recover,” said Fatih Uzunparmak, owner of the popular local candy manufacturing company, Sinaralti Kunfi. The store once regularly had long lines outside.

Shoemaker Mustafa Okki says shop owners in Uzun Karsi Bazaar are still struggling financially. But he hopes things will improve in the coming months.

“I took loans from banks and now I have to repay them,” he said. “Business is slow at the moment, but I hope it will improve after the winter.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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