‘The trauma doesn’t stop here’

• Nazar Mitra

  correspondent Turkey

There he is. A tall Turkish man with eyes full of water. In his hands a pair of brown children’s shoes. As good as new and suitable for severe winter weather. He found the shoes in the rubble. The rubble of what was until February 6 an apartment building in which children were sleeping. No one got out alive. The shoes probably belong to one of those children.

“I saw them lying there,” says the man. “I’m taking them for my son, it’s exactly his size”. The man was able to save his family, his child is still alive. They now sleep in a tent and his son has cold feet. It hurts him to have to take the shoes with him, he says he is ashamed. “I don’t want this, but I have no choice.”

For nine long days I reported for the NOS in the earthquake zone. I shall forget little of what I have seen. But this story won’t let me go. The desperation of the survivors and the painful silence of the dead still under the rubble. It comes together in the man with the infancy. He walks away with the shoes, and his soul under his arm.

I look at what’s left of the apartment building where he found the shoes. The roof is on the ground but sticks up slightly at an angle. Household goods are everywhere. A mattress, blankets, stuff from the bathroom. Toys. Only last night they heard voices here under the rubble. Not anymore, say the women sitting next to it. They cry and sing Kurdish songs. They mourn the children of their family for whom help came too late.

As a foreign correspondent you are trained by experience in dealing with human suffering, but no one can prepare for something as big as this. Colleagues who have covered countless wars say they have never seen so much devastation as here in cities like Adiyaman, Antakya, Kahramanmaras.

I force myself again and again to comprehend how many people are gone in one fell swoop. How many lives have come to an abrupt end. Nearly 50,000 human lives. It is the entire population of the municipality of Utrechtse Heuvelrug. Probably much more.

When I reached the area with my team, there was still plenty of panic. No help had arrived at places where we stopped. On social media we read cries for help from people who were still alive under the rubble. Family members shared addresses (“people still live here!”) and asked for help (“who can arrange a crane for this address?”).

Driving through cities felt apocalyptic and in places ominous. As if we were the first outsiders to arrive. We felt the aftershocks. We held our breath as we passed tower blocks that had just about collapsed. Buildings had become weapons. They could attack at any time. Topple.

We see two older men on top of what’s left of a five-story flat. Five floors flat on the ground, ten families were sleeping there. One of the men saw his daughter. She’s dead, but maybe the others are still alive? They dig furiously. Someone has a hammer. The rest must be done with bare hands.

I know that not many words are needed with these images. That the expression on the faces of these men, their digging rage, is enough to penetrate the safe living rooms of Dutch news viewers. This also applies to what we witnessed a few days later: the emergence of mass graves in the city of Adiyaman.

Natural violence does not discriminate. In this deeply polarized country, there was suddenly no distinction anymore. Turks, Kurds, Alevis, Syrian refugees, rich people, poor people. No one is spared.

I watched desperation turn to anger. Because help came too late for many people. Anger also about the corruption, the unsafe buildings. The cry: ‘Where is the state?’ has made a comeback. But I also saw hope. The unprecedented solidarity in the population. How the people of this country show their best side. How ordinary life stopped and everyone does something. Because their ‘brothers and sisters’ need them.

This disaster will go down in history as the Great Earthquake of 2023. And Turkey will continue to cry for a long time. Mourning the loss of so many lives.

But the trauma won’t stop here. The ground keeps moving. More shocks, another earthquake. Nowhere does it feel safe. Where will fate strike next? Millions of people are asking that question.

In Istanbul, the magical city I call home, a collective nervous breakdown is underway. Bad buildings close together, little control of building codes and two major fault lines around which the city is located.

Friends are now talking openly about moving to the countryside. My confident neighbor doesn’t dare to sleep anymore. A colleague has nightmares. They will never look at houses and apartment buildings in the same way again. They look up and think only: will this building collapse or will it stand? And: how can we ever sleep peacefully again?