Turkish mother loses sight of son in earthquake and cries for three days without being able to speak

Adnan Korkut is a 17-year-old student who lived with his family in a four-story residential building in the central region of Gaziantepe, a city close to the epicenter of the earthquake that hit Turkey and neighboring Syria early last Monday (6). Now the building is completely destroyed.

This Thursday (9), Nejat Ozkok, the teenager’s cousin, was still waiting alongside family members for Adnan’s rescue. He positioned himself in front of the building and has been sleeping for three nights right there, in a small square.

“My aunt managed to run at the time of the disaster. My cousin stayed behind,” says Ozkok, adding that they lived on the first floor. Questioning whether the boy’s mother could talk to the report, he claims it is impossible. “She hasn’t spoken in three days. She just cries.” He faces the guilt of having survived.

There is still hope of seeing him alive, but that possibility drops abruptly as the hours pass. Soon, it will be 96 hours since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook the city.

At this point, without eating or drinking, a person under rubble, even if he is protected by some random arrangement of beams that guarantees him to breathe, is probably very close to death.

This family is not alone in the square in front of the building. About 60 other people are in the same condition, warming themselves in fires set up between the benches or inside cans cut in half.

Since the rescue began, they say, 12 people have been pulled out alive from the destroyed building. And five bodies. As he approaches a group of ladies wearing scarves in the square, the report is interrupted by a young man who says, in English and very politely, that “maybe we have to talk to the husbands first”. “Ask permission, understand?” But the husbands are not around at the moment.

Afad, the Turkish disaster agency, the subject of complaints of absence or delay in several regions, is present but does not answer questions. “It’s not the right time”, just says one of the agents. They are the ones who make up the rescue group and provide tents and food to those who don’t leave there.

Teams from other countries help to remove the debris from the destruction three kilometers from the square, in the Ibrahimli neighborhood, in the extreme west of Gaziantepe. But there it is not possible to overcome the cordon of isolation.

Dozens of people watch as a yellow bulldozer, atop a mountain of rubble, directs its shovel into the remains of yet another residential building. Pieces of tiles, furniture, pipes and water tanks fall from above with every movement of the machine. When one or two walls collapse, dust rises across the street and envelops people. When getting closer, it is possible to understand that the rubble where the excavator climbed is not just misshapen remains.

It is the first two floors of another building, apparently so filled with debris from the upper floors that it becomes a plateau strong enough for the huge machine to ride on. It’s strange, because the walls of these two floors close to the ground, as well as their windows, are still there.

A visit to Gaziantepe Castle, in the old city centre, until last week a tourist attraction, allows you to see the huge Roman stones that rolled down the hill.

The castle was built by Rome between the years 200 and 300 after Christ, but even before that the hill was already used as an observation center in the region by the Hittite empire. Now, at its feet, some families are camping in the parking lot of the site, in makeshift blue plastic tents.