With Fingerprints, DNA and Photos, Turkey Seeks Families of the Missing

When a strong earthquake struck southern Turkey final month, a lawyer concluded that her relations had been buried within the rubble of their collapsed condominium.

Three days later, rescue staff recovered the our bodies of her mom and brother, she stated, however days, then weeks, then a month handed with no signal of her father. His disappearance plunged her right into a terrifying thriller confronted by households throughout the quake zone whose family members are nonetheless lacking.

“I can’t discover my father anyplace on the earth — not beneath the rubble, not within the hospitals, not anyplace,” stated the lawyer, Mervat Nasri, who’s from Syria.

5 weeks after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake and a powerful aftershock struck southern Turkey, killing 47,000 individuals, many others stay unaccounted for, including ambiguity to the temblor’s full toll and leaving households in an agonizing limbo. Greater than 6,000 individuals have been additionally killed throughout the border in northern Syria.

The Turkish authorities have supplied scant details about how many individuals are lacking, making the scope unclear. One indication is the variety of unidentified our bodies buried in cemeteries. Ahmet Hilal, a professor of forensic medication at Cukurova College in Adana, stated his analysis within the space discovered that there have been presently about 1,470.

Latest interviews with specialists, survivors and officers concerned within the restoration efforts indicated chaos within the catastrophe’s first days, with injured individuals dispatched to faraway hospitals the place they might have died with out their relations’ information, and unidentified our bodies rapidly buried as a result of rescue staff had no place to retailer them.

Within the weeks since, the Turkish authorities have begun utilizing fingerprints, DNA exams and pictures to attempt to hyperlink unidentified our bodies with their subsequent of kin.

One department of that effort is in a rocky lot in Narlica, a city in Hatay Province, one of many areas most closely broken by the quake. On a current day, cops and prosecutors labored in metallic delivery containers, which have been used as quake-proof shelters. A stream of households got here by, hoping to search out traces of lacking family members.

The police recorded the names of lacking relations and checked a database to see if that they had been discovered elsewhere. Households that discovered matches obtained loss of life certificates, images taken earlier than their relations have been buried, and the cemetery names and grave numbers the place that they had been laid to relaxation.

These whose relations’ names weren’t within the system watched a big display screen because the police scrolled by means of a whole bunch of images of unidentified our bodies, lots of them disfigured, hoping to see a face they acknowledged.

Some households got here away with nothing. They gave blood for DNA exams that might be crosschecked with samples taken from unidentified our bodies earlier than burial.

“I checked greater than 150 images. I couldn’t take it anymore,” stated Suheyl Avci after leaving the container to smoke a cigarette. “My brother is constant now.”

Greater than two dozen of Mr. Avci’s relations had been killed within the quake, he stated, however he was nonetheless trying to find an aunt. He had heard a rumor {that a} girl along with her identify had been pulled from the rubble alive, however he had not managed to search out her.

Different households obtained painful confirmations of loss.

“He was like a mountain, my son,” cried Makbule Karadeniz, 62, after recognizing her useless son Sait, 35, within the images.

The quake on Feb. 6 destroyed a whole bunch of 1000’s of buildings throughout southern Turkey, ruining some hospitals, overwhelming others and creating chaos that made it simple for relations to lose one another.

After the quake, Sakine Nur Gul, 27, navigated a blizzard and roads clogged with emergency autos to succeed in her household’s constructing within the metropolis of Antakya, lastly arriving 19 hours after it had collapsed, she stated.

Assuming her relations have been entombed inside, she waited by the rubble as rescue staff dug for our bodies and survivors, she stated. However once they reached the basement on the sixth day, that they had not discovered her relations.

So she started a painful, weekslong odyssey to search out her mom, father and brother, who have been amongst 28 individuals lacking from the identical constructing.

Pondering they might have been pulled out alive quickly after the quake, she visited hospitals and graveyards all through the realm and gave blood within the hope that her DNA would result in a match.

Early on, she stated, she discovered sprawling expanses of recent, numbered graves, however nobody to clarify who was buried the place, she stated. Some hospitals refused to point out her images of unidentified sufferers of their intensive care items, citing privateness issues.

Because the search dragged on, the birthdays of her lacking brother and father handed, she stated. 9 days after the quake, her father’s financial institution despatched his final computerized mortgage cost for the household’s now nonexistent condominium.

She has struggled to take care of hope that they’re nonetheless alive, whereas feeling unable to grieve till she is bound they’re useless.

“How lengthy are we going to have to attend?” she stated.

Earlier earthquakes in Turkey left many individuals unaccounted for.

Greater than 18,000 individuals have been killed in a quake near Istanbul in 1999. To at the present time, 5,840 are formally nonetheless lacking, most believed to have been interred with out being recognized. They don’t seem to be included within the loss of life toll.

After final month’s quake, round 5,000 unidentified individuals have been buried throughout the quake zone, stated Mr. Hilal, the professor of forensic medication. However within the weeks since, he stated, that quantity has gone right down to round 1,470 as a result of lots of the buried our bodies have been recognized by means of DNA matches and different strategies.

Folks may have disappeared in several methods, Professor Hilal stated. Overwhelmed rescue staff buried our bodies earlier than they have been recognized, though usually, they collected images, fingerprints or blood. Others may have been charred by fires within the rubble, making identification troublesome, he stated.

Different stays may have been hauled away by chance when rubble was eliminated, Professor Hilal stated, however this was unlikely as a result of many people waited near buildings till their relations had been discovered.

In the long run, Professor Hilal stated he anticipated the variety of lacking individuals to be decrease than in 1999, when the state couldn’t match DNA and didn’t have fingerprints for as many Turkish residents and residents.

However for a lot of households, the uncertainty continues.

Within the days after the quake, Reema Baliqji and her two sons have been rescued from the rubble of their constructing, she stated, and the our bodies of her husband and youthful daughter have been recovered. However her older daughter, Fariyal Idris, 17, was lacking, as was a 15-year-old lady from one other household who had been rescued and despatched away in an ambulance.

On the delivery containers in Narlica, the police discovered data for her husband and youthful daughter, ready loss of life certificates and gave her the places and numbers of their plots in a sprawling new cemetery close by. She additionally obtained a shock: the burial location of a niece with the identical final identify who the household had not even recognized was lacking.

However there was nonetheless no hint of her older daughter.

“We are going to wait and see what occurs,” Ms. Baliqji stated.

Gulsin Harman contributed reporting from Istanbul.