Houses have become tombs: cemeteries in Turkey and Syria lack space for earthquake victims

The Nurdaghi cemetery in the Turkish province of Gaziantep, on the border with Syria, will soon run out of space for the burial of the dead. Bodies are piled up in stadiums or parking lots for identification, mass graves are dug. Read more about the consequences of the tragedy told the publication The Guardian.

Photo: IStock

In the street, dozens of bodies lie on top of each other, waiting to be buried. At least five imams rushed to Nurdagi to lead the ongoing mass funeral fever, sometimes up to 10 victims at a time. Officials brought in coffins from nearby villages and even Istanbul to provide a final resting place for the vast number of dead.

Five days after two powerful earthquakes rocked southern Turkey and became the country's biggest natural disaster in a generation, the death toll has surpassed 21. Nurdagi and cities in southern Turkey and northern Syria are scenes of apocalyptic destruction.

“Forty percent of the people who lived in this city could disappear,” said Sadik Gunesh, an imam in Nurdagi. His house was next to a mosque that had collapsed. Without a place to pray, mass funerals in Nurdagi and the rest of southern Turkey are held outdoors.

On the subject: Is it possible to predict an earthquake: why no one knew about the impending disaster in Turkey in advance

“I’ve lost count of the bodies we’ve buried since Monday,” Güneş noted. — We built an extension to the cemetery. There are still people under the rubble. We bury bodies even in the dead of night with the help of citizens who come to our aid.”

In anticipation of the arrival of forensic experts and prosecutors, residents of some cities in Turkey have piled up bodies in stadiums or parking lots to give relatives the opportunity to quickly identify their loved ones.

Earthquake Turkey pic.twitter.com/BBszBNav1Q

— Tobias Hübsch ??️ ? (@flugkind) February 10, 2023

In Kahramanmaras, rescuers continue to comb through the rubble, often finding only body parts. One of the rescuers told how, trying to identify a severed hand, she showed it to the families of the victims in the hope of using the color of the remaining nail polish to find out the name of the deceased.

“This is where I lived,” confirmed Sadi Uchar, pointing to his damaged house. — It was a new apartment. We bought two apartments a few weeks ago. One for my family and children, the second for my father and mother. My parents lived two houses away from me. They were planning to move this week. A few days ago, my mother and I even hung curtains. After the earthquake, my parents' house collapsed. I dug through the rubble with my hands and pulled out my mother and father. Then I had to bury them with my own hands.”

In the Afrin region in northeastern Syria, a cemetery has been expanded with makeshift mass graves. In the southern Turkish city of Osmaniye, there was not enough space for a cemetery, and outside Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter of the earthquake, a makeshift cemetery is overflowing with so many corpses that wooden boards and concrete blocks, collected from the rubble, were supposed to serve as tombstones.

In Jinderes, in northwestern Syria, in a city full of people displaced by a decade of civil war, refugees who survived bombings and chemical attacks once again fled for their lives from building collapses.

When the first earthquake struck early Monday morning, February 6, Abu Majed al-Sha'ar woke up abruptly from the ground shaking violently and hitting his head against the wall. The man grabbed his children and ran down the stairs to the street.

“Some loved ones just couldn’t get in touch,” he said. “From our large family, only two survived. We have lost many family members."

?Heart-wrenching Video from Turkey
A father trying to break and remove debris with his bare hands in order to search for his trapped family He shouts Say something girls, make some noise But receives no reply. pic.twitter.com/uZxyvSHdiy

— Shah Aiman?? (@Aimankashmiri) February 10, 2023

The quake brought back painful memories of the family's evacuation from their town in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus devastated by Syrian government airstrikes and a prolonged siege.

“Memories went back to when this whole city was destroyed, it was like the same situation, and it reminded me of my seven brothers who died in the building collapse after the airstrike on our building,” he said. “And now that we had to dig through the rubble in Jindires to find my second brother and the rest of our family, it broke my heart all over again.”

Yasser Abu Ammar, a member of the Syrian Civil Defense known as the White Helmets (a group that has worked for years to remove people from the rubble of buildings destroyed by airstrikes), entered Jindires a few hours after the first earthquake.

More than 100 family houses were turned into ruins.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York

“What I saw shocked me,” he admitted. “The destruction that befell the city was horrific.”

Rescue work continued throughout the week, but was slowed down by a lack of equipment and assistance. Idlib remained largely closed to the outside world until six United Nations trucks arrived there on February 9, delivering vital supplies days after the quake.

All over northern Syria, people who now live in tents in the snow have begun burning everything they can to keep warm. Food and other basic commodities were still in short supply.

This is one of the most devastating videos I've seen come out of Turkey after the earthquake.

Rescue workers shout: “can anyone hear our voice?”

The silence that follows is gut wrenching. pic.twitter.com/sWSbVigb75

— Fatima (@fatimazsaid) February 8, 2023

“The world has forgotten about us,” lamented Mohammed Abu Hamza, a fugitive from Jindires, who was displaced for the second time after fleeing Ghouta with his family.

“We have enough food to last us for a while,” he said. “But to keep warm, we only have a little wood, which we burn only a few hours a day in order to last as long as possible. Somehow we had to face this situation alone.”

Survivors were still found in several places. In Khatai, a 30-year-old man was pulled out of the rubble more than 100 hours after the earthquake struck.

But miracles were few. Many families said that in the first 24 hours after the earthquakes, they could make out the faint voices of relatives under the rubble. Then, gradually, silence descended over the piles of concrete and brick that were once houses and now became tombs.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• A strong earthquake occurred in the central part Turkey and northwest Syria February 6.
• President of Turkey Tayyip Erdogan Declared a state of emergency in 7 provinces on February 10devastated by two earthquakes. At that time, more than 5100 people died, a large number of buildings were destroyed in the vast territory of southern Turkey and neighboring Syria.
• Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) set up a fund to provide humanitarian assistance and support efforts to restore infrastructure.
• Earthquakes account for almost half of all deaths from natural disasters in nearly two decades. Why is it so difficult to predict a catastrophe, read in our material.

Read also on ForumDaily:

If you see less of our posts on Facebook, take a couple of simple steps

Eerily beautiful: the five most exciting and dangerous roads in the US

More and more Americans are living to 100: what factors influenced this

Top 10 states with the lowest college tuition fees for local residents

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.