Earthquake

 

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!