More than 45,000 people have died after the 7.7 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes that devastated at least 62 districts and more than 10,000 towns in eleven central and southwestern provinces Turkey last February 6.
Official figures indicate that some 230,000 buildings were destroyed and some 3,300,000 people left their cities to seek refuge in other towns. Another 2 million people are staying in hotels, public establishments, tents, containers, dormitories, student residences and even on trains. It is impossible to have a number of disappeared who were buried in the more than 150 million tons of iron and concrete.
The Turkish Emergency and Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) announced that there have been more than 11,000 aftershocks and at least 45 of them with magnitudes greater than 5 and 6 degrees. The first quake struck at 4:17 a.m. and caught people sleeping in their homes off guard in a wave of cold, rain and snow with temperatures below zero degrees Celsius.
A World Bank report indicates that earthquake damage amounts to 34 billion dollars in Turkey alone, which is equivalent to 4 percent of that country’s GDP. The Turkish Confederation of Enterprises and Businesses estimates the total cost of the earthquake at about $84 billion.
These are portraits of the incalculable material losses, but above all, of the thousands of people who lost everything after the devastating earthquakes.
Image of the destruction: A Turkish flag next to the Koran, a vehicle license plate and water bottles are shown in the foreground. In the background, the destruction of homes.
In Hatay province, thousands of people lost everything. Thousands of Syrians live in this region who fled their country due to the civil war and are now left with nothing.
Among garbage and rubble, hundreds of people live outside their apartments that collapsed after the earthquakes.
Thousands of women were left homeless after the catastrophe in Hatay province.
The extent of the destruction: the earthquakes left incalculable material losses and thousands of people dead and missing.
An elderly man and his son, leaning on a backhoe, look at their destroyed home after earthquakes in Hatay province.
Staring into space and holding a cigarette, an elderly man contemplates the destruction of his home in Hatay province.
A man dressed in black sadly watches the demolition work on what was once his home, hoping to find his wife alive buried under the rubble.
Two Muslim women walk through the rubble of what was once the touristy Kurtuluš street in Hatay.
A woman with her eyes on the floor walks through the rubble of what was her house.
A woman wipes away tears as she tries to put away the backpack of one of her children that she found in the rubble of her house. In the background, two of her relatives are looking for personal items.
A woman looks at several stuffed animals before putting them in a sack where she collected her family’s personal belongings and found in the rubble of her destroyed house.
A couple of children play among garbage, furniture and rubble near the apartment that collapsed due to the earthquakes.
Two children and their mother, with their faces and heads covered, wait for help among furniture and rubble.
As night began to fall, a family cries and mourns the loss of two of their relatives, who remain in plastic bags until the Turkish Emergency and Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) picks them up.
ledz
