Earthquake in Turkey and Syria | Fast-track funeral in Gaziantep

With an extremely heavy toll, the funerals of the victims of the earthquake in the south of Turkey are held in a chain and with very little privacy.

“We came to say a last goodbye to them, but it was very quick, it only lasted ten minutes,” said Kemal Göktas, a young man who came to attend the funeral of a family of seven all perished in the collapse of their building. Like him, hundreds of people are also present for the funeral, in this mosque north of Gaziantep.

Since the earthquake, the coffins have been parading almost continuously and the funerals have followed one after the other, so that this mosque is almost overwhelmed. Officials are no longer even able to know how many people have had the right to a funeral. The ritual is the same as before. But in an accelerated version.

It all starts below the mosque where the funeral takes place, as Muslim tradition dictates. Subsequently, the coffins are transported, one by one, to an adjacent terrace for a religious ceremony. Men wear them, followed by dozens of women screaming in pain at the loss of their loved ones.

The religious ceremony then begins under these tears. Faced with the influx, the imam can only devote a few minutes to each ceremony, where coffins from different families are present at the same time. Then they are transported to the adjacent cemetery. The pain is immense for these hundreds of people who, after the shock of a tragedy, must now share the intimacy of mourning. “It’s so sad to see all these deaths, people don’t even have words to speak,” says Kemal Göktas.

Desolation

In downtown Gaziantep, the emotion is also present, but for another reason. The city’s famous castle, an architectural and tourist gem, suffered significant damage. Part of the bastions and walls have been completely destroyed. Some debris and stones even tumbled into adjacent streets.

Ergün Kaplan, an employee of a restaurant near this castle, considered one of the best preserved citadels in Turkey, is still struggling to measure the extent of the damage. He explains that he has never seen anything like it in his life and now wonders how his people and his city will recover from this tragedy.

Higher up, on the hill where the castle is located, makeshift tents are erected by the inhabitants who will sleep, again this evening, outside. It’s cold, so they somehow try to cover the holes in the tents with plastic to keep the freezing air out. They light fires with wood.

Opposite them, a small store that has withstood the tremors displays numerous wood-burning stoves on the sidewalk. You have to pay 1000 Turkish liras, or about C$70, to get one. A price far from accessible, for these people who have lost everything. Every time a small aid truck stops by the side of the road, people rush to get firewood and some traditional breads before nightfall.

Research continues

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the search continues through the wreckage of several collapsed buildings. Even if many are still trying to hold on to hope somehow, they must face the facts: the chances of finding survivors are now almost nil.

“After the 72-hour window, it is increasingly difficult to find people. It’s not impossible, but it’s less and less the case,” says Jan Campbell-Wood, a volunteer from the United Kingdom, who watches the relief operations from afar. Deployed since Tuesday in southern Turkey, the volunteers bring aid from town to town.

But the low chances of finding people still alive make him say that efforts must now focus on the aftermath. “It’s always chaos at the start. I think no country can be sufficiently prepared to deal with earthquakes in such a short time. But now we have to take the next step, making sure we meet all the people’s basic needs, such as shelter, water, food and medicine. »

Behind her, Yigit, a young man, keeps staring at a car under the rubble. This car is the last link that still connects him to his grandfather, swept away in the collapse of his building. Since Monday, he has been coming here every day to look at this vehicle for hours, as if to bid it a final farewell.