‘A Strange Dream’: A Cruise Ship Is a Floating Shelter for Displaced Turks

The dinner theater is now a day care middle, the place youngsters rifle via bins of donated toys. The wonder salon has become a one-man barbershop.

On a latest afternoon, younger boys raced throughout the broad decks that run the size of the Gemini, a cruise ship floating off the coast of southern Turkey. Households drank tea and peered at an amphitheater of mountains encompassing the lives they’d misplaced beneath the rubble of two earthquakes that decimated a large part of Turkey and western Syria.

“We’re in a wierd dream — it’s haunting,” mentioned Basak Atay, a 30-year-old nurse. She has spent the previous a number of days residing together with her household on the 538-foot luxurious ship, which has change into a shelter for a number of the estimated 1.7 million Turks displaced by the quakes and their aftershocks.

“I’d by no means have guessed that I’d be on a cruise to nowhere at a second like this,” mentioned Ms. Atay, who misplaced household and associates within the quakes.

The ship, which used to ferry vacationers from Turkey to the Greek islands, is housing greater than 1,000 survivors within the port of Iskenderun, within the hard-hit province of Hatay. Not less than 650,000 residents have fled the area because the first quake on Feb. 6, based on the province’s mayor. The residents of the Gemini are a lucky fraction of those that stay.

The federal government in Turkey, which was saddled with a housing disaster earlier than the earthquake, has resorted to a patchwork of impromptu fixes to assist the displaced.

The Gemini is one among at the very least 5 floating options that dot the shoreline of Hatay, offering assist to hundreds of individuals. A navy ship at a close-by port has been transformed right into a hospital, the place medical doctors have carried out dozens of surgical procedures, together with a child supply, because the first temblor. Native ferries supply housing and transport households throughout the Mediterranean Sea to northern cities like Istanbul and Mersin, the place the inhabitants has elevated by virtually 21 p.c over the previous three weeks.

In December, Turkey’s Ministry of Vitality leased the Gemini, with its 400 cabins, to briefly home its employees off the coast of Filiyos, within the Black Sea. When the earthquake struck, the ship was despatched to Iskenderun’s port in order that it might be repurposed for survivors. Native officers dealt with requests to board it, allocating cabins to individuals who had been disabled, aged or pregnant or who had younger youngsters.

Like many passengers, Ms. Atay mentioned it was her first time on a luxurious liner.

“We speak about how comfortable folks most likely made enjoyable reminiscences on this ship,” Ms. Atay mentioned, including that she may think about folks dancing on the deck beneath, the place strings of lights swayed above a wood flooring. “However we’re damaged.”

Earlier than touchdown on the Gemini, she mentioned, her household of eight had sprinted via an impediment course of non permanent shelters — a automobile, a tent, a lodge — whereas she continued to work as a nurse within the emergency ward of a non-public hospital about 20 minutes from the port.

“I really feel I’ve been strolling on my tiptoes,” she mentioned, recalling her reduction when she arrived on the boat and had her first night time of uninterrupted sleep, someday after a magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck close to Iskenderun, inflicting extra buildings to break down.

On Deck 6, Ayse Acikgoz, 72, sat on a white leather-based bench, knitting heat clothes for her 15 grandchildren, who she mentioned had been nonetheless residing in tents. One flooring above, within the Eclipse lounge, a dozen folks watched information of the quake zone on tv. On the entrance of the ship, a bunch of males thumbed prayer beads as they surrounded a match of backgammon.

At lunchtime diners within the Aegean Restaurant scooped lentils, lamb liver and rice into plastic dishes on the buffet line. Kids ogled an array of desserts, together with orange slices and syrupy balls of fried dough.

“The meals is heat, and the choices change every single day,” mentioned Ayse Simsek, 33, who mentioned she and her two daughters had survived in her automobile for 9 days on cups of soup offered by reduction teams earlier than they boarded the Gemini.

Gul Seker, 34, was getting ready to present delivery whereas residing in an encampment of transport containers in Iskenderun when a neighbor referred to as and urged her to use for a spot on the ship. Inside hours, she was on the Gemini together with her husband and son. Days later, she went into labor.

“I assumed I used to be going to die,” mentioned Ms. Seker, who has hypertension. “I referred to as my husband to say goodbye,” she mentioned, recounting the story in her seventh-floor cabin overlooking an expanse of blue. A ship receptionist organized to maneuver her to a hospital on the navy ship close by, she mentioned. She ended up giving delivery in a public hospital in Iskenderun.

“We name her our miracle,” Ms. Seker mentioned, reaching right into a stroller to rearrange the lace on her daughter’s bonnet. Child bottles and diapers had been stacked on a shelf with garments and stuffed animals — items from the passengers and crew.

The newborn is called after the cruise firm, Miray, which is spelled in delicate blue lettering on the partitions of the Gemini.

On Deck 8, a neighborhood barber, Yunus Kutuku, 34, presides over what was as soon as a magnificence salon. The second quake destroyed the barbershop the place had labored for 20 years in Iskenderun, however on the ship, he has given dozens of cuts to survivors freed from cost.

“I’ve change into a neighborhood celeb right here,” he mentioned as he maneuvered expertly round an enthusiastic boy sporting a vivid inexperienced Batman shirt. “It retains me busy. So long as I’ve scissors, I can go on.”

He has reduce the hair of at the very least 5 passengers who had been regulars at his store earlier than the quake. “It relaxes them,” he mentioned. “It offers them the illusion of issues going again to regular,” he added, earlier than shouting “subsequent” to the lengthy line of boys ready for his or her flip.