“If I were to pray to find a dead man? Yes… to deliver his body to the family,” says an excavator operator who traveled to the southeastern Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the February 6 earthquakes, from Caesarea.
Moving piles of rubble with his digger, Akin Bozkurt consoles himself by thinking that the discovery of a bow will give relatives the chance to bury their loved one and have a grave where they can mourn.
“If I were to pray to find a dead man? Yes… to hand over his body to the family,” he says.
Bozkurt, 42, traveled to the southeastern city of Kahramanmaras Turkeythe epicenter of the February 6 earthquakes, from Caesarea (250 kilometers north), in order to assist in the demolition of the damaged buildings.
“When they pull a body out from under tons of rubble, families wait with hope… They want to have the chance of a decent burial,” says Bozkurt.
He recounts an incident when a father trying to warm himself near the ruins of his house approached him and begged him to find what might be left of his daughter. “He told us: Please find at least one part of her body so I know where her grave is,” says the 42-year-old and adds “…it’s really tragic!”.
In the city’s cemetery, thousands of new graves have been opened, underscoring the extent of the destruction.
More than 46,000 people have been killed in Turkey and Syria since the February 6 earthquakes, and the toll is expected to rise further as operations to find survivors in the rubble draw to a close.
Source :Skai
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