More than 21,000 bodies have been pulled from the rubble in four days, including those in neighboring Syria
Three days after the worst earthquake to hit Turkey in decades, Hakan Tanriverdi has a simple message to send to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: “Don’t come here to ask for votes.”
More than 21,000 bodies have been pulled from the rubble in four days, including the victims in neighboring Syria. The disaster came at a crucial time for the Turkish head of state, who expects to remain in power after this year’s elections.
Prime Minister from 2003 to 2014, president since then, the immovable Mr. Erdogan confirmed in late January that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held in Turkey on May 14.
The short time frame that intervenes minimizes the scope of the Turkish opposition to agree on a common candidate.
Although some do not rule out the possibility that the elections will be postponed due to the disaster.
A three-month state of emergency was declared in the ten earthquake-hit provinces. Authorities estimate that 13.5 million Turks were directly affected by Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake.
Residents continue to search the wreckage for survivors, but most of the time they find nothing but corpses. For those who survived, the icy roads remain. Or, for the more fortunate, their cars.
For the Turkish president, the situation seemed favorable. After a drop in popularity in the polls last year due to the financial crisis and skyrocketing inflation (over 85%), he has seen his ratings slowly recover.
But the absence of effective disaster management in the first days after the earthquake by his government it is possible to reverse the trend.
“What deeply wounded us is how no one helped us“, Hakan Tanriverdi will say.
In Antiyaman, the capital of the province of the same name, where he lives, Mr. Erdogan prevailed with characteristic ease in 2018. But five years later, many residents complain of the deadly slowness of search and rescue operations and severe equipment shortages.
“I didn’t see anyone before 14:00 on the second day after the earthquake,” in other words 34 hours after the main earthquake, shouts Memet Yildirim in exasperation. “No state, no police, no army. Same on you! You left us to our fate.”
“Sin”
The Turkish head of state admitted the day before Wednesday that there were “gaps” in the reaction of the authorities. But he is looking to regain the upper hand. On Tuesday, he attended a meeting of disaster management agencies in Ankara before touring earthquake-hit areas for two days.
However, he did not go to Antiyaman.
“Why was the state absent on a day like this? Where are the foundations of Turkey’s democracy?” protested Hedige Kalkan, a volunteer. “People are pulling their own bodies from the wreckage with their own means.”
The scale of the disaster, the fact that it took place in a vast area, parts of which are remote, as well as the fact that the earthquake struck in the middle of a wave of bad weather, would however make search and rescue operations in any country extremely complicated.
Mr. Erdogan was warmly received by hundreds of earthquake victims in the carefully choreographed television broadcasts during his tour. The cameras zoomed in on an elderly woman crying on his shoulder in one of them.
Weisel Gultekin would not extend the same treatment to his president. One of his relatives was crushed by the debris, his legs were trapped. “We talked until the morning. I could take him out with a simple drill (…). But unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything with my bare hands.”
In the second great earthquake that followed, “his whole body was crushed (by the debris) and he died.”
AFP journalists saw yesterday Thursday construction machinery and members of rescue crews, especially foreign missions, around buildings that have collapsed in districts of Antiyaman.
Which is more than enough to calm Hakan Tanriverdi.
Trapped, they were left “in (death) agony in the cold,” he says.
“Isn’t it a sin to let people die like this?”
RES-EMP
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
