Earthquake leaves tens of thousands of people homeless in Turkey and makes large swaths of cities uninhabitable

The earthquake that shook Turkey and Syria last Monday has already made large areas of Turkish cities uninhabitable.

“I am taking an empty bus to Elbistan, I will take families who want it to Ankara or Eskisehir for free.

Please forward this message."

And the message from Davut Çankaya, one of those trying to help the tens of thousands of evacuees unable to return home after the quake, spreads like wildfire through a trail of gunpowder, through WhatsApp groups and other social networks.

In an hour, the squares are complete, and at 2:00 p.m. local time (midday in mainland Spain) they were ready to leave from one of the areas hardest hit by the earthquake towards safer regions.

Moved by the misfortune of those who have lost everything in the earthquake, this resident of Eskisehir (northwestern Turkey) decided to borrow some buses and come to the rescue of people.

“This is my second trip, yesterday [Thursday] I brought four buses, but I saw that there was a lot of need and I returned.

This time only with a bus, because I pay for gasoline and I didn't have enough for more”, explains Çankaya on the phone.

Like him, numerous anonymous citizens and teams who have brought aid and return empty from the area affected by the earthquake -larger in extension than Andalusia- offer to take families who want to be evacuated.

These individual efforts join those of the State.

AFAD, the government's emergency agency, has established evacuation management points where they are informed about where they will be housed and in which provinces.

Those from each affected locality have been assigned a host province, mainly on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts.

Subsequently, they are transferred by plane, train or by road.

In this way, until Thursday night, 30,360 people had been evacuated.

For its part, the private airline Pegasus reported on Friday that it has helped to evacuate 30.

771 victims of the earthquake in 169 flights established for this purpose: “With the aim of evacuating citizens from the earthquake zones, all extra flights until February 19 will be free.

We will continue to do what we can to expedite evacuations."

On the Turquoise Coast, numerous hotels have opened their doors, before and after the request of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to turn this region —the most touristic in Turkey— into a place of reception for the victims.

“People are in a very difficult situation, they don't have a home, they don't have a place to shelter and, in fact, our facilities were closed for the winter season, so we decided to open the hotel to people,” says Ilker Turgut, hotel owner. Esvida, from the town of Kemer.

The 120 beds that he has are already occupied by victims of the earthquake, who are offered room and board at no cost.

Erdogan himself has admitted this Friday delays in the provision of aid.

The response "has not been as quick as the Government would have wanted," he pointed out.

The solidarity of the country when it comes to welcoming the victims is essential given the devastation caused by the earthquake.

The Turkish government estimates that there are 13.5 million affected and has asked people not to return to their homes, even if they remain standing if there is the slightest suspicion that they are damaged, since the aftershocks ―of which they have registered more than 4,000 of various magnitudes—they could finish knocking them down.

Although 138,000 tents have already been set up in the area, housing everyone in the camps is impossible.

inspections

The Minister of Urbanism, Murat Kurum, raised this Friday to 12,141 the number of buildings that have collapsed due to the earthquake.

However, the number will continue to rise as inspections continue.

For example, the Department of Earthquake Engineering of the Bosphorus University has made an estimate of the destruction suffered by the city of Kahramanmaras, capital of the province where the epicenter of the two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 was registered. .

His study considers that, in this town of 670,000 inhabitants, 2,192 buildings have been completely destroyed and that around 40% of its 50,000 buildings are uninhabitable.

The metropolitan mayor of Gaziantep, Fatma Sahin, has also recognized that "half of Islahiye", another town near the epicenter of the first earthquake and with 67,000 inhabitants,

Minister Kurum has assured that, when the rescue and debris removal work is completed, "the largest mobilization in the history of the Republic" will begin to rebuild homes in the devastated area.

Erdogan has promised to complete the reconstruction within a year and, this Friday, he announced that, during that period, the State will cover the price of the rents that the victims have to pay.

“We are preparing a program so that the country, starting from the earthquake zone, can get back on its feet,” Erdogan said.

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