A year on, those who survived and remain in Hatay province are still feeling the effects.
Hatay, Türkiye:
Abdullah Yanar planted flowers in front of his shipping container home to make it feel more like a real home for his family. They have been living in temporary shelters in southern Turkey since last year’s devastating earthquake.
Last February’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake, the worst in modern Turkey, killed several of Yanar’s relatives and damaged his apartment, forcing him and his wife, daughter and son to move first into a tent and then Moved into one container house after another.
“Thank God we have a roof. But it’s a bit difficult to live in a shipping container with two children,” Yanar said at his home in Hatay, the province worst-hit by the earthquake in southern Turkey and northern Syria. . .
Yanar, 38, who works in local government, said that despite some reconstruction, it would still take a long time to restore the historic provincial capital of Antakya.
Faced with unaffordable rent for a “real house” and unpredictable water and electricity supplies in his 21-square-meter (226-square-foot) container home, he lost hope for his family’s future.
“I don’t have any expectations. We don’t enjoy life at all. But thank God,” he said.
The earthquake that struck in the early hours of February 6 devastated parts of towns and some cities in the country’s southeast. It killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and nearly 6,000 in neighboring Syria, leaving millions homeless.
A year on, those who survived and remain in Hatay province are still feeling the effects.
Much of the province collapsed in the earthquake, but hundreds of destroyed buildings have yet to be demolished, and many of the two-thirds of Hatay residents who remained in the province now live in container homes.
In October, the Yanar family moved into another container house, which has a small living room with an open kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. He said rents in the area had increased fourfold, meaning there was no option to move out.
In the same container city, Ali Riza and Sunay Gazaloglu sit on a sofa, their daughter Ela between them. The nine-year-old was the only one of their three daughters to survive when their house collapsed a year ago.
Silently, Ella played with a red teddy bear. She was afraid to enter buildings and would not go to the four-story school.
“We were a happy family before the earthquake. I had a job and now after three surgeries I can no longer work,” said Ali Riza, who suffered a serious back injury in the earthquake.
His family currently pays for daily expenses through funds provided to victims by the Turkish Red Crescent Society.
unforgettable memories
After the disaster, President Tayyip Erdogan’s government pledged to rebuild 680,000 homes in 11 provinces within two years, including about 250,000 homes in Hatay. Officials have unveiled the latest addition to the family home ahead of its first anniversary.
Residents say container homes are generally warm enough at night. Other displaced residents ended up in larger prefabricated homes with two bedrooms and a living room.
Among them was Gulcan Yilmaz, 47, a mother of two who was miraculously rescued from the rubble of an eight-story building five days after the earthquake.
“My feet and arms were hanging in the air,” she said as she was trapped under the rubble.
“When I freed my hands, I pulled out the sticky hair. Then my broken hand fell on my leg. I sat on a thin board for five days, unable to move my feet. The birds came , I talked to people and they were under the rubble.”
Yilmaz was later flown by helicopter to Adana province. When she opened her eyes in the intensive care unit, she found that her legs had been amputated due to gangrene caused by the cold. She has since returned to Hatay for physical therapy to help her repair her prosthetic leg. After living in a tent, she moved to a prefabricated house in the Ekinci neighborhood of Antakya city in September.
“In my eyes, this mobile home is a palace. But I want to live in these new apartments that the government is building,” she said.
business dream
Some earthquake survivors are still living in tents despite temperatures dropping to 4 degrees Celsius overnight.
In Turkey’s southernmost Mediterranean coastal city of Samandag, 42-year-old Ozden Kar lives with his family and relatives in a tent set up outside the city hall building, which was also damaged and is now made of shipping containers. composition.
Carr said they spent the winter without heat in tents provided by donors. The authorities referred them to a container city in Antakya, a 40-minute drive away, but they wanted to stay because their children’s school and her husband’s job as a livestock breeder were in Samandag.
“Everything is here and I can’t go to Antakya,” she said.
Twelve of Ka’s relatives died in the earthquake. She said the family was unable to move into the apartment because of high rent and lingering concerns about its durability.
“My daughter gets scared when she hears the slightest noise. We are all scared,” she said.
Carl’s 75-year-old mother, Nadire Cabaroglu, is an asthmatic and has had to see a doctor regularly since the earthquake. Toxic dust released by collapsing buildings triggered her asthma attacks and she was unable to leave her tent without wearing a mask.
Residents in other tents said they wanted to stay close to relatives and familiar communities despite the availability of container homes elsewhere in Hatay.
In Antakya’s historic Uzun Carsi Bazaar, some of which withstood the earthquake even as much of the city center collapsed, the economic strain is evident, as it once was A third of its important residents and visitors have disappeared.
“Tourists no longer visit Hatay, and many locals have left the city or live in container houses located on the outskirts of the city. Recovery will take time,” said Fatih Uzunparmak, owner of Cinaralti Kunefe, a famous local dessert maker. The shop once regularly There was a long line outside.
Shoemaker Mustafa Ok said shop owners at Uzun Carsi Bazaar are still struggling financially. But he hopes things will improve in the coming months.
“I got loans from banks and now I have to pay them back,” he said. “Business is slow right now, but hopefully it will pick up after winter.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
