“We did not die in the ruins, but we risk dying of disease”: in cities reduced to ruins and dust, showering and finding toilets is an obsession for survivors who fear the appearance of epidemics .
For the first few days, survivors of the devastating February 6 earthquake that devastated southern Turkey and Syria were forced to relieve themselves in rubble or in toilets overflowing with excrement.
Since then, portable toilets – as seen on construction sites – have been installed here and there in the major cities affected, but these are far from sufficient.
Millions of people are now homeless.
A row of fifteen blue and white portable toilets was lined up on a bridge in the center of the city of Antakya (south), which had nearly 400,000 inhabitants with its outskirts before the earthquake.
Their evacuation is done directly on the roadway.
“That’s our main problem. We manage to get there early in the morning but it’s still really bad, they are in a disastrous state. There is no water,” says Nurhan Turunc, 42.
“Like humans”
Sedef, 18, came anyway, because those at the school where she took refuge are even worse.
“We did not die in the ruins, but we risk dying of illnesses,” she told AFP, refusing to specify her surname.
A small message left on the door of one of these toilets begs users to “use the toilets like humans” to prevent them from getting dirty too quickly.
Further north, in Kahramanmaras, close to the epicenter of the earthquake, Husne Duz, a 53-year-old resident, also complains about the lack of toilet facilities.
“There are no toilets, they should be installed in tents: people just pee outside. We need toilets and showers. We also need to be able to wash our things,” she complains.
Erdal Lale, 44, found a solution to the mosque in the center of the city that miraculously still stood when so many others had collapsed.
“There are only these toilets that we can use, I walked 5 km to get here. We have a problem. And still we are men, but women? “, he notes.
Hacer Yildirim, a volunteer from the Netherlands, lists the needs: “People are asking for wipes, soaps, shampoo and showers. Here there is water but nowhere to shower”.
Asbestos dust
“The hygienic conditions are poor, there will obviously be contagious diseases”, warns Sedat Akozcan, the representative of the Chamber of Pharmacists of the province of Hatay, that of Antakya.
He and his colleagues have set up more than a dozen makeshift pharmacies under red and white tents in Antakya, in front of which long queues have formed.
About thirty pharmacists take turns there to welcome more than a thousand patients every day who are unable to go to their usual dispensary.
Nurhan Turunc, forced to sleep with around twenty people in a makeshift shelter, is ready to wait some more. “Help will come,” he believes.
But Mr. Akozcan also recalls that the temperatures which fall to 0°C at night in Antakya – even worse in the mountainous areas around Kahramanmaras with -15°C in places – create a risk for young children.
“Winter is very cold and we see a lot of respiratory infections in the little ones”, he says, even if there are no ongoing epidemics or contagious diseases at this stage, he insists. he.
Hundreds of pharmacists rallied across the country and donated boxes of medicine, bandages and other essentials.
Men and women also come to demand masks, worried about the dust raised by the rubble and potentially toxic due in particular to the presence of asbestos.