Turkey started the week with a 9/11 death toll and could end the month surpassing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is no exaggeration, however inappropriate the comparison between natural and man-made calamities.
"We believe that the earthquake has caused at least one hundred thousand deaths, only in the province of Hatay," Ömer (name changed), a member of the team of engineers and architects who assesses the damage on the ground for the ministry, explains to La Vanguardia, all of whom the days. His classmates nod.
The most conservative extrapolations for all of Turkey range from 185,000 to 200,000 fatalities. Very far from the 22,000 deaths of the official number, which does not include those who disappeared under the rubble.
In Antakya, the provincial capital, “half of the buildings that still stand will still have to be demolished,” says Ömer. The city of the loves of Marco Antonio and Cleopatra or of the primitive church of Juan and Lucas will have to start from scratch.
On Monday, all the Turkish children had their cases ready to go back to school, after the two-week winter break. But at 4:15 a.m. a prolonged 7.7-degree swipe hurled them from the darkness of the night into the rubble.
Not a single child is to be seen on the streets of Antakya. Only adults wandering the road with their heads bowed or standing in front of the mound that was their home. Or full of purpose, like the volunteers or the gangs with sledgehammers and picks and the constables and their trained dogs.
No less misplaced are various foreign rescue teams, in impeccable uniforms, like the Germans, waiting for a mission that never arrives.
Many Turks wonder why, unlike what happened in 1999, the head of government did not order the intervention of the army and the police during the first two days. Speculations abound.
In any case, February 6 already marks the worst catastrophe in Turkey's history. In the 21st century, globally, only the 2004 tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake would fall into the same category.
The earthquake has also been the most lapidary disavowal of the Turkish presidential and centralist model. Precious days and lives were lost due to the concentration of power, which prevented a swift response at the local and provincial level.
It is said and repeated that Erdogan arrived with an earthquake and could leave with another. With the difference that he is a more seasoned and cunning politician than any of his rivals, from 1999 or now.
It is in the hands of the Turks to decide, in the elections in three months, their share of responsibility. "In any case, the responsibility is shared between the government, town halls, construction companies and inspection technicians," says Ömer.
“For the first time Turkey has joined – confesses a historian who prefers to remain anonymous – all except some from the AKP” (Justice and Development Party). Faced with the impossibility of throwing balls out or polarizing, Erdogan's party remains silent.
Something little appreciated by the families of the victims and the victims, who reproach him for the delay in the rescue. This despite the fact that the AKP is overwhelmingly dominant in the entire arc of the earthquake, except for Antakya – where the Republican People's Party won – and in Diyarbakir, less affected, where the HDP weighs more, the Kurdish Batasuna on the brink of outlawing.
The seriousness of the moment was revealed on the same Monday morning, when the Minister of the Interior and potential successor to Erdogan, Suleyman Soylu, declared the level of emergency that opened the doors to international aid. A change of roles, taking into account that Turkish diplomacy has thoroughly played the cooperation card abroad. Even more so, coming from a minister who, a few days before, had addressed the US ambassador in these terms: "Get your dirty hands off Turkey."
According to Ömer, in cities like Antakya you don't see children on the streets "because many are in schoolyards, enough have been evacuated and thousands upon thousands are dead."
In the ten affected provinces –some of them, tangentially– the state of emergency has been introduced for three months, which restricts rights and allows the transfer of population or arbitrary detention.
No less worrying is that the most devastated area, Hatay, borders on outlaw Syria, Idlib, the pasture for jihadist organizations. A deterioration in security is already observed and it is feared that the flow of money and aid will become a target .
That Turkey will get out of this is demonstrated by the civic response. Many companies have given their employees permission to go to the affected areas as volunteers. The suspension of classes is due to the number of teachers who have done the same. People like Ilker. “My bank has given us 60 employees permission in Istanbul. In my case, for logistical help. But I don't see a future for these people."
In Adana, where the shock wave kicked in, hundreds of people afraid of returning home are still sheltered in the fair pavilion, where chairs like those of a Chinese restaurant delimit the space of each family. The Incirlik base, with US tactical nukes, is a stone's throw away.
