Southern Turkey
CNN
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Five days following the strong earthquake that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria last year, an exceptional event unfolded: Sezai Karabas and his 6-year-old daughter Sengul were rescued from the ruins of his collapsed apartment block in Gaziantep province without any injuries.
Although he may have appeared very fortunate, he did not feel that way as he had lost his wife Rukiye and 4-year-old son Mehmet.
“On one hand you feel happiness, on the other, you feel sadness. I didn’t know if they made it out, but deep down I knew they probably hadn’t,” Karabas mentioned. Sengul, in the meantime, played with her cousin on the partially cleared rubble of their former home in the city of Islahiye, as her father attempted to explain their miraculous survival to CNN.
According to Karabas, they were in another room getting winter coats when the building collapsed, trapping them under five stories of rubble in a narrow, meter-high pocket. Despite being buried for four days, they displayed an extraordinary will to survive until they were rescued a day later, after 132 hours.
“Even we don’t know how we survived,” Karabas expressed. “It was cold, we had no food or water, but God gave us strength. We didn’t feel hunger, thirst or exhaustion even for a minute. We just waited, and tried to conserve energy.”
Scott McLean/CNN
Sengul Karabas, now 7, stands on what remains of their former home in Islahiye. She lost her mother and brother when the building collapsed in the earthquake.
They have since relocated to their family village and built a new house.
“Our relationship has become more intense. Of course, Sengul loved me before but now she doesn’t want to leave my side,” Karabas mentioned.
He added that Sengul does not talk about her mother and brother, not wanting to relive the traumatic memories of the earthquake.
The initial earthquake on February 6 was 7.8 in magnitude; a second, 7.5 magnitude quake came hours later. The shaking lasted for only seconds but, a year on, it’s clear the impact will be felt for generations.
Parts of Hatay look almost like the earthquake happened yesterday, as badly damaged buildings await demolition. In the center of the ancient city of Antakya, there are few signs of life and even fewer buildings that look like anyone still lives in them.
According to official figures, 14 million people in Turkey were impacted by the earthquake. More than 850,000 housing units were either destroyed or badly damaged. And while most of the rubble has been cleared away, rebuilding is slow.
Guray Ervin for CNN
Damage from the earthquake is still visible in Antakya, Hatay province.
Last year, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to build 650,000 housing units for those who had lost their homes to the quake – 319,000 of them within a year.
His government promises that 75,000 will be finished in the next two months, but fewer than 20,000 have been fully completed so far.
The main roads between affected cities in southern Turkey are dotted with hundreds of temporary “container cities” that will be permanent for the foreseeable future. Almost 700,000 survivors still live in these camps – in trailers equipped with water and power, but little else.
Ismail Demir lives in one outside Islahiye, in Gaziantep province, with his pregnant wife and 1-year-old son. With arms outstretched, you can almost touch both walls. They have a space heater for warmth and a hot plate to cook. Because demand for housing far outstrips supply, he can’t afford to rent an apartment on his salary as a factory worker.
“Until (the government) gives us an apartment, we will have to stay here,” he said. the family lived in a rented apartment before the quake destroyed their home.
Scott McLean/CNN
A “container city” outside Islahiye offers temporary housing for some who lost their homes in the quake.
Last year’s earthquake killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey, and thousands more in neighboring Syria. It is difficult to get accurate information on the recovery efforts in Syria, but there is scant evidence of a large-scale coordinated effort to rebuild.
In Turkey, even a year later, there are at least 145 people missing, 38 of whom are children, according to Sema Gulec, who leads DEMAK, a group formed to represent their families. The group’s calls for a commission to find the missing have now twice been rejected by parliament.
Gulec’s 25-year-old son, Batuhan, is among those who are missing. His building in the seaside city of Iskenderun collapsed on February 6. For eight days, Gulec and her family helped search the rubble. Survivors were pulled out, bodies were found, but not Batuhan
