The village of Demirkopru, in the Turkish countryside, was totally destroyed by the earthquake which hit Syria and Turkey on February 6th.
The village of a thousand inhabitants was literally cut in two by the earthquake. On February 6, in a few seconds, a fault several meters deep engulfed the paved road, the stables and the houses of the peasants of Demirkopru, in the heart of the Turkish countryside.
Maher and his family escaped through the window. “In the first tremor, our house collapsed. Then, with the second, it moved ten meters. The worst was when it started to slip.” The bed of the river which crosses the village moved and the water rushed into the fault, causing a landslide.
ruined peasants
“Our houses have drowned in the river, continues Maher. And the land next to it is completely flooded. This barn where there were animals, look how far it slipped…” A large part of the cattle fled during the earthquake, the peasants are ruined.
“We built our homes here, not really knowing that we were on the seismic fault, explains the mayor of the village, Hussein Shahad. So maybe it’s also a bit of our fault.”
“Everything was devastated.”
Hussein Shahad, Mayor of Demirkopruat franceinfo
Its citizens will receive initial state aid: €500 per family. Then €250 per month for a year, a drop in the bucket compared to the extent of the destruction. “I don’t have any money, but Dad Erdogan, he will give it to me and I will be able to rebuildquips Ilhan, a peasant from the village. He makes speeches, so he’s going to give us some money and I’m going to redo my house. He is like that, Erdogan!”
At the exit of the village, the communal cemetery is devastated. Some tombs are cut in two, swallowed up by the fault. In an alley that resisted, a woman cries on her knees on a mound of earth: her 19-year-old daughter died in the earthquake. She was five months pregnant.