Ground Zero: In Turkey’s Quake-Ravaged Kahramanmaras, There Are Tales of Grief—and Joy

Turkish rescue workers carry Kamil Can Agdas to an ambulance after they pulled him out from a collapsed building five days after the earthquake, in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, on Feb. 11, 2023. (Ismail Coskun/IHA via AP Photo)

KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey—More than a week after Kahramanmaras became the epicenter of back-to-back earthquakes measuring 7.7 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, the scope of destruction in the southern Turkish province almost defies belief.

In central Kahramanmaras, entire neighborhoods have been flattened as a result of the Feb. 7 earthquakes. Dazed survivors congregate near mountains of rubble that were once multistory buildings, anxiously awaiting news of missing friends and family members.

“My daughter-in-law and grandchild were both killed in the first quake,” an elderly woman, who declined to give her name, told The Epoch Times. “Now I’m waiting for them to find my brother and nephew.”

Pointing at a towering heap of wreckage, she asked, “How could anyone survive that?”

The twin quakes caused varying degrees of devastation in nine other provinces of southern Turkey, where a three-month state of emergency has since been imposed.

On Feb. 14, Turkey’s official death toll stood at 31,974, with tens of thousands more reportedly injured. Both numbers—especially the first—are expected to rise even further as more bodies are pulled from the rubble. Syria’s official death toll stood at 5,800, taking to total number of deaths from the disaster to 37,774.

A woman sits on the rubble of a destroyed building in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, a day after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the country's southeast, on Feb. 7, 2023. (Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

‘Every Family Is Coping With Tragedy’

Speaking with residents of central Kahramanmaras, one finds that virtually everyone has a harrowing story to tell.

“I lost my mother, father, sister, and brother-in-law, along with their three children, when their building collapsed,” Serife Durna, a local resident and mother of two, told The Epoch Times.

“The only one to survive was my 1-year-old niece,” she said, tearfully showing the little girl’s picture on her mobile phone. “For us, she’s like a miracle.”

Durna’s building is still standing, but she’s unable to stay there amid fears of more tremors. She is currently staying at Kahramanmaras University, where she works as a lecturer, along with hundreds of others who have been rendered homeless.

Standing at her side, Durna’s brother, who rushed from the capital city of Ankara after the quakes, said: “The scope of destruction is unbelievable. Every family here is coping with its own tragedy.”

According to Turkey’s Environment Ministry, more than 41,500 buildings have been either destroyed or irreparably damaged by of the initial quakes and thousands of aftershocks that have continued to shake the region.

On Feb. 9, the southern provinces of Gaziantep and Elazig were both rattled again by a 4.4-magnitude tremor. The following day, a 4.2-magnitude aftershock reportedly shook Kahramanmaras, bringing down another three buildings.

But since the city’s tall buildings have long been abandoned, no one was hurt.

Rescue workers try to rescue a 15-year-old girl trapped under the rubble, in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on Feb. 10, 2023. (@fire - Internationaler Katastrophenschutz/Handout via Reuters)

Occasional Joy Amid Devastation

An overwhelming sense of grief, which hangs over the city like a funeral pall, is occasionally punctuated by joyous tidings. On the evening of Feb. 10, the Turkish authorities announced that 67 people in quake-affected areas had been rescued over the previous 24 hours.

In Kahramanmaras, too, where the devastation is worst, survivors were still being found, thanks largely to the tireless efforts of rescue workers. On Feb. 9, a 1-year-old baby was pulled out alive from beneath the debris of a fallen building.

The following day, there was more good news, despite the passage of four days since the quakes and nighttime temperatures that frequently fell below freezing.

“A short time ago, we heard someone shouting for help from under the rubble,” the head of a rescue team from Turkey’s Hayrat aid foundation told The Epoch Times.

“She was trapped on the third floor of a collapsed building, with one of her legs stuck under a fallen column,” the rescue worker, who did not give his name, said.

“We managed to pull her out after lifting the column. Her name is Ayse; she’s 18 years old. She’s now in stable condition and receiving treatment.”

A view of the damage as the search for survivors continues, in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on Feb. 10, 2023. (Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)

An International Effort

Since the twin quakes struck on Feb. 7, volunteers from all over the world have flown to Turkey to assist ongoing search-and-rescue efforts.

A 104-member team from El Salvador, which arrived in the country on Feb. 8, worked around the clock in 10-hour shifts in the Sazibey district of Kahramanmaras.

As of Feb. 11, the team had found only dead bodies among the wreckage, but they still entertained hopes of finding survivors.

“Our sniffer dogs and thermal cameras indicate that there are still people alive in there,” team member Wilson Ernesto, 50, told The Epoch Times.

Ernesto, who works as a firefighter in El Salvador, also assisted rescue efforts in Haiti, which was devastated by a 7-magnitude quake in 2010 that killed an estimated 220,000 people.

“Our country suffers frequent earthquakes, so we feel empathy for others when it happens to them,” he said. “That’s why we came.”

Other volunteer search-and-rescue experts currently working in Kahramanmaras have come from as far afield as France, South Korea, Romania, Israel, and Australia.

Aerial photo shows the destruction in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, on Feb. 8, 2023. (Ahmet Akpolat/DIA via AP)

Turkey’s ‘Worst Natural Disaster in a Century’

The mounting death toll has now surpassed that of a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that struck northwestern Turkey in 1999 and left more than 17,000 dead. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described this week’s twin quakes as the country’s “biggest natural disaster in a century.”

Throughout history, the geographical area that is now modern-day Turkey–which sits astride two major fault lines–has been prone to seismic activity. In 1939, more than 32,000 people were killed when a massive earthquake struck the country’s central Erzincan Province.

The Feb. 7 quakes were felt as far away as Cyprus, Lebanon, and Egypt. But the only other country to suffer comparable damage was Syria, which shares a 565-mile border with Turkey.

According to Syrian sources, more than 3,100 people were killed by the quakes in the country’s northern Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, Latakia, and Raqqa provinces.

In the meantime, survivors in Turkey’s Kahramanmaras Province are struggling to come to terms with their grief.

“After suffering such loss, I thought I was going to lose my mind,” Durna said. “But somehow we’ll find the strength to bear all this pain.

“I’ve begun to feel peace. ... I know I did my best for my family. Now I have nothing more to lose.”