in Turkey, a year after the deadly earthquake, the trauma does not fade

A year ago, a vast region between Syria and Turkey was devastated by an earthquake. Tens of thousands of people died, more than 100,000 were injured, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. A year later, the wound remains gaping.

In Turkey, Monday February 5, one year after the terrible earthquake which devastated eleven provinces in the south-east of the country, the trauma is still present. The earth shook on the night of February 5 to 6, 2023, causing 53,537 deaths and more than 107,000 injuries, according to a latest report.

In Antioch, the most damaged city, wherever you look, there is only desolation, ruins and fields of stones. It is as if the earthquake had occurred yesterday in this thousand-year-old city, a melting pot of religions, where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together. It is now about twenty kilometers away that Orthodox Christians meet on Sundays, in a room next to a church with a steeple on the ground.

“Antioch has been erased”

When we ask Father Jean what has changed in a year, he sighs: “Antioch has not been changed, but has been erased. There is no more Antioch. There are only people trying to live in containers. There are only people left who try to send their children to school, to give them a future. People who, when they are sick, try to find a hospital, in an area where there is no public transport. If you you have a car, you’re lucky, otherwise… I can’t say what’s changed, what we’ve lost. We’ve lost everything.”

Antioch lost 90% of its inhabitants, dead, missing or forced to leave a city where there was still a lack of everything, shelter, water, electricity. If the city is still in ruins, the survivors have not managed to overcome psychological trauma either. Emine, her eyes clouded with tears, hugs herself in a down jacket in the freezing cold: “Who are those who are really dead? Those who remained under the debris or those who came out? We die every day. Every night, we have nightmares. We always relive the same moment, we see the same images.”

“I can’t forget the neighbors who died, their bodies pulled out of the rubble… We try to live but we can’t. For you, a year has passed, a year is a long time , but for us it feels like it was yesterday. Time has stopped.”

We talk about the earthquake in every conversation, every day. The need for care is immense. Domestic violence has exploded. Families are crowded together in precarious conditions, in containers. The fathers who are heads of family have lost their jobs, the children cry as soon as the rain comes or the sky clouds over, fearing a new earthquake. We no longer count the depressions, suicides, alcohol and drug abuse.

“We found nothing, not even a member”

And then there are those who cannot grieve. Those who are still looking for a missing loved one. Their number is incalculable. This is the case of this couple from Izmir: their niece cannot be found. The bodies of her husband and their baby were pulled out of the rubble, but she disappeared.

However, they say, his father arrived on the scene an hour after the earthquake in the middle of the night: “He stayed for a week. 24 hours a day. They found nothing. Everything was on the ground. The earthquake had pulverized the buildings. Ambulances arrived and took away the bodies, the dead and the injured. But we I don’t know where. There was no control. You couldn’t know where they were taking them. It could have been in Izmir, in Ankara, in Antalya… But we should have found her. We found nothing, not even a member. We always have this question in our heads.” This is the case for dozens or even hundreds of families.

“For centuries we have lived here as brothers”

On site, we don’t see much of what the State is doing. Excavators are still busy demolishing, only recovering scrap metal that can be sold for money, tarpaulins surround vacant lots promising brand new buildings, a mosque is being renovated. The Christians are waiting for the green light from the government to restore their buildings. They all want Antioch to be rebuilt as before when all the communities lived there together.

Like Kemal: “There was the Christian quarter, there the Alevis, there the Muslims. All that in a pocket handkerchief. Meals, we shared them, religious festivals, we celebrated them together. For centuries, we lived here like brothers. We want to relive this. And it is urgent to do something.” But the people of Antioch have little confidence in their government. To revive, they appeal to the international community.