ANTAKYA, TURKEY — Close to the epicenter of Monday’s devastating earthquake, a whole lot of our bodies lined the pavement of a parking zone exterior a hospital in Hatay Province. The makeshift, open-air morgue was a grim reminder of the human toll of the catastrophe.
Greater than 20,000 folks have died throughout Turkey and Syria, a quantity that’s anticipated to rise as search-and-rescue efforts shift to restoration operations.
The Hatay Coaching and Analysis Hospital is positioned in one of many worst-hit areas and was severely broken, leaving an overwhelmed workers to course of a whole lot of our bodies left on the concrete, many with out identification.
Mehmet and Yusuf Ozdemir have been among the many a whole lot of households looking for the our bodies of their brother and his household on Wednesday.
One after one other, they opened and closed physique baggage, discouraged by the numerous rows of corpses.
“Kin of the deceased, like us, don’t wish to unzip the physique baggage and see that horrible sight,” stated Mehmet. “This isn’t the way in which it ought to be.”
Their brother Ibrahim Ozdemir was killed alongside along with his spouse, Emine, and their two daughters, 1-year-old Emine and 3-year-old Necla, when the earthquake trapped the household within the rubble of their condominium constructing.
After greater than an hour of looking out, Mehmet and Yusuf lastly discovered the our bodies of Ibrahim and his household. They moved them right into a car, getting down to a close-by cemetery to bury them.
As they drove, devastation surrounded them. The street to the cemetery, as soon as lined with high-rise condominium buildings, was now stuffed with damaged concrete and countless piles of particles.
Households huddled in tents close to the rubble of what was their houses. A lot of them have been Syrian refugees who fled to southern Turkey to flee a brutal civil battle, solely to search out themselves displaced but once more.
On the Fatikli Mosque, mourners prayed over the our bodies of the Ozdemir household. One other relative, who’s an imam on the mosque, led the burial ceremony.
Exterior the mosque, a bunch of mourners dug 4 graves aspect by aspect, one for every member of the family.
Some wept quietly because the our bodies have been lowered into the bottom. Kin sat solemnly on the pavement, observing the scene.
Ibrahim’s aunt Fatma Ozdemir cried out through the burial. Different feminine mourners stated their ultimate goodbyes, wiping mud from the recent graves into the chilly air.
Throughout Turkey and Syria, rescuers and volunteers are nonetheless combing by means of the rubble of hundreds of collapsed buildings, bracing for a lot of extra burials to come back.
Sarah Kerr contributed extra video manufacturing.
