Fear, miracles and hopelessness at ground zero of the earthquake

Cuma Gögremis, 52, repeats a phrase in broken English: “

”.

Her city, Pazarcik (28,000 inhabitants), in the province of Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the earthquake, has been struck down.

That wants to count.

And more things: she points to the west, towards where she thinks the fault that has caused the earth to shake is.

As she stretches out her arm, the ground shakes again.

It is mild, noticeable and stops quickly.

Gögremis chatted around a fire with his little brother, Tolga Özgur, and other residents of his neighborhood.

They turn to run somewhere, although the fact is that they are in the open, under a tree and the risk is less.

But the disaster caused by the strong earthquakes on Monday - which has already claimed more than 24,000 deaths, 20,000 of them in Turkey - has gotten into the depths of their heads so as not to come out.

Every day, say those who gather around the fire, they wake up naturally at four in the morning.

It is the hour at which their houses began to move.

Everything shook because below there, about 18 kilometers deep, the earth trembled at a magnitude of 7.8.

The effects are already visible on the outskirts of the city of Kahramanmaras, capital of the province of the same name.

The destruction, apparently capricious, grows as the road leads towards the city.

The asphalt, in some section, is broken as if struck by lightning.

There are warehouses lying on one side, accordion houses, lampposts leaning towards their backs.

Before reaching Kahramanmaras (1.1 million inhabitants), the organization that manages disasters and emergencies in Turkey, AFAD, an omnipresent giant, has built a base camp to coordinate rescue teams and register affected families.

The rush is unstoppable.

The horns of the trucks and cars whistle to enter empty and leave with the rear overflowing with boxes of provisions.

Inside the compound, guarded by the Turkish police, dozens of citizens gather around bonfires to warm up and eat.

Nervousness is breathed;

Five days have passed since the catastrophe.

Erdoğan visit

The days are running and the rescue operations are entering a complicated phase, in which the hope of finding someone alive is small.

Provinces such as Kilis or Sanliurfa have ceased the search for survivors.

But there are miracles.

The Austrian Michael Erhard, from the SARUV organization, tells, while petting his dog, an expert in people searches, one of which he has been a part of.

On Friday morning, his team helped to pull a woman and a child out of the rubble.

They had sensed that they were there, but at about twenty feet, too deep for the dog's nose.

They put in heavy machinery and managed to rescue them.

What can you feel with something like that?

"It's a great feeling," says Erhard with wide eyes despite the long work shifts ―eight hours on a mission for six hours off and back again―,

Another miracle: after 58 hours under the stones, trapped in the basement, the Zaragoza fire team managed to get out Adiyaman, about 160 kilometers from Kahramanmaras, also badly hit by the earthquakes ―this Friday it received a visit from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ―, to a 60-year-old woman.

She “she was dehydrated and in

we came by the hairs”, narrates the coordinator of the contingent, Enrique Mur, on the phone.

A rescue team, deployed from Valencia in the same Turkish city, also managed to recover a father and his daughter alive.

It was his third success.

The other side of the coin is shown by Stephan Jay, a fellow firefighter from France.

After eight hours of work, after having thought they heard something, they could not find anything.

The odds are slim.

The Spaniards from Adiyaman have already completed their work on the ground and are traveling back to Spain.

But teams from other countries arrive.

Earthquake survivors rest as a woman cries in a designated area in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, on Friday. SUHAIB SALEM (REUTERS)

Israeli rescue personnel participate in the search for survivors in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, on Friday. STRINGER (REUTERS)

Search for survivors among the rubble of buildings in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, on Friday. STOYAN NENOV (REUTERS)

Rescuers move a 56-year-old survivor in Kahramanmaras (Turkey), on Friday. RONEN ZVULUN (REUTERS)

Ahmad and his wife, Fatma Colakoglu, look at the remains of their destroyed home in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on Friday. RONEN ZVULUN (REUTERS)

General view of a field affected by the earthquake, in the city of Kahramanmaras (Turkey), on Friday. RONEN ZVULUN (REUTERS)

A woman next to the body of her nephew who died from the earthquake in Kahramanmaras (Turkey), on Thursday. OZAN KOSE (AFP)

Members of the Israel Defense Forces search for survivors among the rubble, on Friday, in Kahramanmaras (Turkey). RONEN ZVULUN (REUTERS)

An aerial view of the damage in Kahramanmaras (Turkey), on Friday. RONEN ZVULUN (REUTERS)

A group of men pray before a burial of the victims, at the Kahramanmaras cemetery, on Thursday. SUHAIB SALEM (REUTERS)

General view of the damage to houses affected by the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, on Friday. STOYAN NENOV (REUTERS)

Halfway between this city and Kahramanmaras, the Gögremis brothers were around a Pazarcik bonfire.

They run the cafeteria across the street, tightly closed, next to a shelter built by AFAD with dozens of white plastic tents for those who lost their homes.

In the gardens outside, a blanket of discarded clothes almost completely covers the green.

Tolga, the younger of the two, aged 27, explains himself: anonymous donors began to bring there, in boxes -there are still a few left-, clothes for those affected by the earthquake, but order left a while ago.

On the other side of the road, two buildings leaning outwards can be seen, one of them with a strangled half façade at the entrance.

“I still can't believe it,” says Cuma, “two earthquakes in a row, it's something so unusual;

I never imagined finding this garden like this”.

Full of discarded clothing waiting for someone to take advantage of them.

Nor did he imagine that they would have to take his very old parents out of the house at four o'clock on a Monday morning.

“The first thing I did”, continues Tolga this time, “is to take bottles of water”.

She shows videos of the destruction of her house, and opens her hands, full of Band-Aids on her fingers, to show the traces of that night.

A few minutes after walking out the door, the Gögremis' house fell apart.

Around the fire, neighbors from the same neighborhood of Pazarcik get closer.

One of them brings firewood to fan the flame.

Thank you Fatma Dogan, a 65-year-old teacher.

She knows the neighborhood well, she assures her, and many of her neighbors because she, she defends herself, she is the teacher.

"I have not lost any family member," says the woman, "but I have lost my best friend, who has already been buried, although I could not go to the funeral."

"Tell what has happened here, spread it, please," insists the teacher, with small eyes, a tanned face and a kind gesture.

The heat rises with the fire.

Also the conversation.

They talk about their origins, about discrimination, about traveling to Europe.

They get angry with each other.

They don't have electricity, water;

They live in a tent, with temperatures below zero.

They have been left homeless.

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