I know many people have already written
about this on various forums, but there is need for tremendous help in the
regions impacted by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. This has been the most
awful natural disaster in Turkey at least in my lifetime. The death toll is nearing 20000, and the people who survived the earthquake in the
region have to face the aftermath under terrible weather conditions, the worst/coldest
part of winter in a year. If you wish to help, here are some of the places you
can donate to.
AFAD is the official disaster
and emergency management office in Turkey. They have information about the accounts
where you can donate in TRY, EUR, USD on their website.
AKUT is a voluntary organization
that assists search and rescue missions. They are also transparent about how
they spend the donations. The info for the accounts where you can donate in TRY,
EUR, USD is on their website. They also allow donations using credit card,
which could be more convenient for people living abroad.
AHBAP is another trustworthy voluntary
organization that has been very active in the regions impacted by the earthquake.
Similar to AKUT, they have account numbers where you can do a bank transfer in
TRY, EUR, and USD in addition to the option of donating using a credit card.
When I woke up on Monday morning,
after I wrote my usual “good morning” message on the WhatsApp group chat I
share with my parents, I noticed another message from a friend in Denmark
asking “Hey, is your family alright?” Since my parents replied to my “good morning”
message, I at least was certain that they were alive. I continued my morning
routine and arrived at work. I wrote to my parents again.
Me: Has there been another explosion
in Istanbul?
Dad: No.
Me: Has there been a bad impact due
to the heavy snowfall?
Dad: No.
Me: A friend asked if you are
alright. Did something happen?
Dad: There has been an earthquake.
There is a lot of damage.
Mom: Many people died.
I decided to check the news. I normally
avoid checking the news at work to prevent distractions. I sometimes check
Danish news while taking a break because they tend to be so boring that they
make me want to get back to work. For Turkish news, I wait till I get back home
from work, since they tend to make me either sad or angry or both.
When I checked the news, I
realized the gravity of the situation. I froze in front of my monitor for a
moment and then started crying. I wrote to my parents again. My mom informed us
of some of the losses of close family friends. I wrote to a bunch of friends to
see if their loved ones are doing alright. I received some more messages from
people asking if my loved ones are doing alright.
Turkey is an earthquake region. My
hometown in Turkey, Zonguldak, isn’t harshly impacted by the earthquakes. But I
witnessed mild earthquakes in the past, and I am, like any Turkish person,
unfortunately used to hearing earthquake news and losses.
The previous earthquake that was
closest to the scale of this one in Turkey was the one on August 17, 1999. I
was in primary school back then, still living in my hometown. It was at night.
I suddenly woke up. I saw a white light fill the sky followed by complete
darkness. I got scared. Something was not right. I don’t remember the feeling
of being shaken, but maybe that is why I woke up in the first place. The
darkness was due to all the lights being gone as a result of the earthquake. I
sat in my bed for a bit. Then, I got up and walked toward my parents’ bedroom
trying to see if they were up. They were sleeping. I walked a bit more in the
house still scared eventually waking up my parents to my noise. My dad asked, “what’s
up?”. I told him “I need to pee, but something is wrong, it is too dark.” He said, "Turn the lights on." I said, "There is NO lights, neither at home nor outside." Then, my
parents told me not to worry. I wasn’t a kid with smooth sleeping behavior, so
for them me being awake at night wasn’t that alarming. I eventually went back
to bed but couldn’t sleep. After a while, we heard a knock on our door. It was
one of the neighbors. He informed us of the earthquake news. He was very nervous
while delivering the news, because he knew my mom’s family lived in Istanbul
and Istanbul was one of the cities with the most damage. We tried reaching out
to my grandparents and my mom’s siblings. We couldn’t for a long time. The phone
lines were down. We eventually learned that everyone in the family was ok, but overall
Turkey wasn’t ok.
The year following this
earthquake, we witnessed several milder ones. I remember one on a day I was hanging
out at my mom’s office after school. She was having a phone call with someone.
The guy said, “We are having an earthquake.” Mom said “Again!?” A few seconds
later mom’s office started shaking. It stopped after a while, we weren’t hurt. I
remember another one when we were at the movies. The screen started shaking. Everyone
got outside. After a while, we got back in and finished the movie. I don’t
remember what the movie was, but it definitely wasn't worth going back to a movie theater after an earthquake. But for me, movie theaters have always been my safe place, so it made sense to go back.
I am well-aware that I am writing
this post from a place of privilege when it comes to earthquakes. This doesn’t
mean that it has been an easy week to go through, this has been the biggest natural
disaster in my home country in my lifetime. But my challenges in
facing this disaster from afar are nothing compared to the ones of the people
who are in southeast Turkey and Syria right now. I appreciate everyone who
reached out to ask how I am doing. I send my condolences to everyone who got
impacted. I am grateful to all the volunteers working in the region. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, there is a lot of work
to be done and help needed to reduce the awful impact of this disaster. If you
wish to help, please consider donating.
Take care all!
