Turkey and Syria: Two nations in pain

After nearly 20 hours of driving, we arrived in Kahramanmaras, at a scene beyond description. A truly apocalyptic scale of devastation. Building after building, block after block, had been levelled.

Rescue teams were working frantically to reach people buried in the rubble of that first magnitude 7.8 earthquake on February 6.

I had been awakened just after 4am that day by Al Jazeera’s newsdesk to be told that an earthquake had hit southern Turkey, where my family is from, and still lives. Nobody knew at the time how strong it was.

But before I could travel to check on them, our team had to journey to the epicentre of the earthquake, Kahramanmaras.

From time to time, a call would go out for silence when rescuers heard a voice from beneath the fallen buildings. Hundreds of people huddled in on and around the rubble, scared and exhausted but still hoping to hear the voice of their loved ones.

Berrin Izgin’s son and husband were still under the rubble, she told me. She had already lost a child and daughter-in-law and was waiting, hoping to get her son and husband back. Hours later, her son Mehmet was pulled out. But her husband, despite all efforts, remained under the debris that night.

There were dozens of people under the same collapsed block, many still alive, their families waiting anxiously in the freezing cold.

Nearly 6,000 people died and about 1,000 buildings collapsed in Kahramanmaras. Rescue efforts were frantic and families were refusing to leave until their relatives came out from under the rubble. Dead or alive.

Because there was nowhere else, our team slept in our car during freezing nights, huddled in sleeping bags. Days passed as the tragedy unfolded. On the morning of the fourth day, the temperature was still below zero.

Zahide had been near where we parked our car for more than 80 hours, hoping to find her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchild who were under the rubble she was staring at nonstop.

When she saw our camera, she said: “Report on this, so that people know my pain. My dear ones are burning under this rubble.”

Next to her, a Syrian family had six relatives in the same collapsed building. They said they fled the civil war and came to Kahramanmaras to begin a new, safer life in 2013. Turkish and Syrian families shared the same pain.

People were trying to cope, relying on aid and sleeping in cars as the aftershocks continued. “God shall save us. We are now refugees,” said an elderly Turkish woman, barely able to walk.

Death and life intertwined in Kahramanmaras. The dead bodies were emerging as survivors were being fed by mobile kitchens the Turkish military set up.

I have never seen that many dead bodies in my life, despite reporting from war zones and disaster areas several times.

As the sun set, I heard a woman screaming in pain – it was Zahide. A body had been found. Her son was pulled out from under the rubble, but he was not alive.

With a population of nearly two million, Kahramanmaras was one of the more developed cities in Turkey. Now, the city centre was mostly destroyed, and lives torn apart. It took days, even weeks, to find all the victims. And it will take years to rebuild. But the effect will be felt longer still.

On the fifth day, on Malik Ejder Street, Fatma Saygin was wailing with grief, singing for her loved ones. “My niece is there, five days without her voice,” she said.

Fatma Acikgoz waited five days, hoping to find her four children alive. Now two of them lay lifeless on the ground beside her, the other two were still missing. Angry and broken, she cried, asking me to tell the world her story. “May God punish those who constructed these collapsed buildings. And whoever didn’t inspect them.”

Zekeriya Bag had watched his wife and son die slowly, stuck under the debris. He said his son was screaming for help: “Father, we are dying,” his mouth was full of debris so he couldn’t breathe properly. Zekeriya crawled towards him and cleaned his mouth. “My son told me: ‘Dad, I love you, and farewell.’ He died there. Now, I am waiting for his and my wife’s body.” Zekeriya said.

Rescue teams were still calling for silence from time to time on that fifth day, trying to track a voice they heard from under the rubble. They had to be quick but careful before it faded. Each time, people prayed and held their breath.

There was a moment of joy for a hopeful family, the rescuers and bystanders as rescuers pulled out Kazim Tatar, a disabled 35-year-old man, after nearly 110 hours.

Kazim said there was another man who was stuck next to him under the rubble and was still alive. Another spark of hope. And the work restarted. No matter how many bodies we saw pulled out, the rescuers kept going, racing against the closing window they had.

On the sixth day, the voices from under the rubble were fading and those alive were exhausted by the torturous wait, sometimes losing their temper and control. For days now, they had hoped to see their loved ones coming out of the debris alive. Or at least to recover their bodies and give them a proper burial. Tensions were running high as time ran out and the bodies kept coming.

Ahmet was screaming in pain and despair after the body of his younger brother was found: “A brother should never find himself burying his brother,” he told me. His mother had survived, but now this oldest sibling had to mourn his little brother.

A Turkish folk song says hope is the only food for the poor. The weary families who survived had nothing more than hope.

“My grandchildren, son, and daughter-in-law are all under this rubble. It has been days; I couldn’t get even one of them yet,” Necati Kurt told us.

The rescuers were also exhausted. The window to save people was closing and the cost of failure was too high. A rescuer told us he had been working non-stop for days and was mentally down, but had to keep going as families were counting on them. An unbearable burden on their shoulders.

On the sixth day, our last day in Kahramanmaras before heading to Syria, a moment of celebration and hope: a five-year-old Syrian girl had been pulled out alive after 132 hours under the rubble.

On the seventh day, I was at the Cilvegozu Crossing in Reyhanli, Antakya, waiting to cross into Syria. Hundreds of Syrian refugee families were at the crossing too, waiting to get back into the country whose civil war they fled. Now they were going back to attend loved ones’ funerals and see those who survived. The bodies of the Syrian refugees who died on the Turkish side were also being transported to Syria for burials.

Across the border in Turkey, rescue and aid operations were running non-stop. But there was only silence across the border in northwestern Syria – the silence of grief and abandonment. No excavators, diggers, heavy machines, or sniffer dogs. Only bare hands and rudimentary equipment.

And those who survived were in dire straits. International aid, the only lifeline for the roughly four million inhabitants for years already, was sparse and had taken too long to arrive. The rebel-held region had been bombed mercilessly by the Syrian government throughout 12 years of civil war and the earthquakes only made it worse.

Hospitals already lacked modern equipment, medical staff and ambulances. Many survivors died on the way to hospitals or soon after arrival.

We only had a few hours in Syria during our first trip after the earthquakes but, as we crossed the border into Turkey, I knew I would return.

On the ninth day, after days and nights of constantly being on the road from one disaster to another, I was finally in my hometown: Adiyaman. The city where I was born and raised and spent nearly two decades of my life.

I painfully realised it was worse than Kahramanmaras.

I have reported on many disaster areas across the world, from wars to natural catastrophes. I have seen death and loss throughout my career. But I never imagined that one day I would cover the story of my own friends and report on the deaths of familiar faces.

Some of my distant relatives and some close friends, including high school ones, were now gone. The streets I walked through with my friends so many times had been levelled. So many faces I knew were lost.

Adiyaman was utterly a different city now than the one I knew. Sweet memories were gone; just ruins remained.

Life has come to a halt in Adiyaman since the earthquakes struck. Nothing symbolises that more than the landmark clock tower in the city centre, its hands frozen at the moment the quakes shook the region: 4:17am.

More than 10,000 people died in Adiyaman, and more than 1,000 buildings collapsed. The survivors were struggling.

Only 25 percent of the city had water after pipes were heavily damaged. Almost 60 percent of residents were living without electricity. None was getting natural gas.

The largest stadium in Adiyaman was turned into a tent city for more than 5,000 people. The displacement of survivors in my hometown was becoming a humanitarian crisis.

And, by now, rescuers were hearing fewer voices from under the rubble. They were gradually shifting from finding bodies to clearing debris and providing essential goods and services to the tens of thousands of survivors.

I spent the whole day reporting live from the streets, standing in front of the rubble that remained from places that were once so dear to me.

Our home, where mom still lives, was shaken severely but not damaged. That ninth day, late at night after my final live report in Adiyaman, I finally saw my mom. She did not even know I was there that day.

When I turned onto the street, I knew so very well. I knew my life would never be the same. But I was deeply grateful that I still had my mom. I knocked on the door, and she opened it. She burst into tears when she saw me standing there. We held each other for a few minutes.

“It was like Judgement Day, my son,” she said when she could finally speak.

My sister and some of my close relatives had moved to my mom’s house because it was considered the safest. I stayed about six hours that night with them before returning to Antakya to travel to Syria early in the morning. I had to keep reporting.

In Turkey, the devastation came in minutes. In Syria, it compounded over 12 years. In the countryside of the town of Jinderes in Afrin province, I met the survivors who were taken to a makeshift camp. A whole world of pain was on their faces.

Al-Muayed Bukar could only watch helplessly as his son slowly died. Trapped together under debris for hours, he held his child and waited for help, but none arrived. He was still heavily injured, with bandages on his legs, hands, and head.

“First, blood oozed out of my son’s mouth, and then his voice faded gradually. My daughter and other son were just metres away. They also died,” he told me. Al-Muayed said no aid could heal him, he had already lost what he treasured most – his children.

In the same camp, traumatised children were hesitant at first when they saw us with cameras. Nearly all of them were born during Syria’s war and most grew up as orphans. They have watched those around them killed by bombs falling from the sky and now the earthquakes took away what little they had left. But children are still children; even in disaster, some were playing, chasing after a football in the camp.

Mohammed Satouf was alone in a tent when we approached and asked to talk to him. He and his family had been displaced several times and lived in camps for years. Then he built a modest house and moved in with his family. It was not much, but still home. He said he was beside his wife when the roof collapsed on them and grabbed her leg to see if she was alive. She moved it a little – a sign of life.

But when he woke in a makeshift hospital, he discovered his entire family was no longer. “I asked about my wife, and the doctor told me she is dead. I asked about my daughter … also dead. I then asked about my son, and the doctor told me ‘may Allah rest him in peace’. They are all gone.” he said.

About 4km (2.5 miles) from that makeshift camp, in Kafar Safra, life and death were hand in hand. We saw hundreds of people gathered near a newly dug cemetery. They had buried their loved ones there, where they waited for help for days and nights.

Sabah Hussain lost many friends and family members during the war. Now the earthquake has claimed nine more. Her husband was now buried next to some of their children, about 10 metres (30 feet) from where we talked. But she said she must stay strong – her youngest child still needs her.

Syrians there said the international community abandoned them. To an extent, they are used to being ignored but now they are angry at the lack of help.

We had to cross into Turkey before the day ended and passed several checkpoints as the sun set, leaving behind a country where disasters overlapped.

I went into Syria again, a third time, to the city centre of Jinderes, the worst-hit in the country. There I found Abdulrezak Hassan digging through rubble with his bare hands, trying to find the title deed to his destroyed home. He feared he would lose even the rubble that had killed his family and relatives if he could not find the proof that his home once stood there. “No one helped us. No diggers, excavators, or machines. The bodies stayed under rubble for days,” he said.

Jinderes’s devastation was absolute. More than 1,000 buildings there have either collapsed or been heavily damaged. Hundreds of people died, and thousands were injured.

The survivors were trying to cope, relying solely on international aid, which took so long to arrive. Many were given only one meal a day, and many received even less. They said they do not receive enough international aid, and that it is poorly organised.

Leyla Suleyman has lost dozens of relatives and friends. Her family was displaced several times in the last decade and she now sits in a tiny tent with her extended family, telling us about the night of the earthquake: “It was rainy and cold. I thought my whole family had died. I was screaming and trying to find my children. Finally, after eight days on the street, we got this tent. But it is not for winter … kids can’t sleep during the night because of the cold. I want nothing but just a proper tent for my kids.”

The earthquakes left many further shattered in Jinderes. Their faces bore the weight of loss and devastation. Many Syrians there thought they had survived the worst after 12 years of civil war and conflict. But now they have lost even more: homes, possessions, and a sense of security. Most Syrians there spent years running from war and death, their only dream – a normal life.