In a city with an apocalyptic landscape, franceinfo met Walid, a survivor. He saved part of his family from the rubble earlier this week, the others are still buried.
There is a smell of death next to the vans responsible for transporting the dead. It’s been more than four days now that the diggers have been clearing away, that the rescuers are digging under the rubble in search of a breath of life. In Nurdagi, the epicenter of the earthquake that ravaged southeastern Turkey overnight from Sunday to Monday, the city is completely destroyed. If there is now little hope of finding survivors and dozens of victims are waiting to be evacuated to the morgue, on the ground, placed in body bags in the middle of the street, yet the victims are clinging .
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But, nevertheless, Walid no longer believes in miracles. His brother Hassan, and his nephews, Hussein, 8, Lohey, 5, and Ghazzal, 2.5, are still under the rubble. “I don’t feel anything anymore. It’s an endless nightmare. They’re in God’s hands now, and I can only follow his will“, he breathes.
“She couldn’t move and she was holding her baby in one hand”
Fatalism after the miracle for this young man: a few hours after the earthquake, Walid made his way with his bare hands through the rubble of the same building, he was then able to extract his sister, Basma, and her four children.
“My sister’s family was down there. I had to go down 1.50 meters to be able to reach them, he says. I slipped under the building and started clearing the debris. I found a small space to pass. I removed the stones with my bare hands, I had nothing else. I caught the first child, then the second and the third. My sister was under a concrete block. She was stuck. She couldn’t move and she was holding her baby in one hand. I picked up the infant and then she was able to crawl out.”
Eyes reddened and skin covered in dust, Walid hasn’t slept for four days. And when he dozes off, he says, he imagines his brother and his children, dead under the rubble.
According to rescuers met on site, it is now almost impossible to find someone alive. Moreover, the authorities are beginning to consider, even if nothing is official for the moment, to stop the search operations to concentrate on clearing the tens of tons of rubble that clutter the city.