It is difficult to explain in words the sensation caused by an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 7. The earth that moves under itself, punctuated by the intermittent rumble caused by the synchronous trembling of different materials, is an all-encompassing, ineluctable experience. On the night of February 6, for the millions of people who lived in an area of about 400 km2, from the Turkish province of Hatay to the Syrian one of Aleppothis has become a collective experience.
A Gaziantephost city for hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, but also the place where this coexistence generates the strongest tensions, after the first shock of magnitude 7.8 of 4.17 with epicenter at Pazarcik (Kahramanmaraş), 50km away and 8km deep, entire neighborhoods poured onto the streets in the middle of the night, seeking refuge in cars or parks. Thousands of people found themselves with their feet in the old snow of a few days trying to warm up by reaching out their hands towards improvised fires around which they huddled waiting for a dawn which – it was already clear – would rise over the now changed landscapes.
When the earth shook again, at 13.24, with a magnitude of 7.6 a Elbistan (Kahramanmaraş), the still waiting city came to a definitive stop and the emergency proved destined to remain. Even the luckiest – all those who have not been engaged in the rescue of their loved ones – have found themselves catapulted into a new reality dominated by pressing needs: how to escape from cold bite and where to go, in almost total lack of means of transportnow that home no longer seemed to be the safe place it had once represented.
The unstable Anatolian peninsula
Earthquakes are by their nature unpredictable, but, in the case of Turkey, they do not represent an unusual event: the Anatolian peninsula is in fact located at the crossroads between the three Eurasian, Arabian and African tectonic plates and for this reason presents two faults affected by seismic activity, one in the north of the country which from the Dardanelles strait runs along the black sea and the other that from the east, near the border with the Syriaproceeds diagonally to rejoin the North Anatolian Fault in Erzincan Province.
If in the past there are numerous earthquakes that have significantly changed the appearance of Istanbullocated on the first fault, in recent history has been the East Anatolian fault to show the greatest seismic activity. In Erzincan, not far from the Black Sea, one of the most intense earthquakes in Turkish history occurred in 1939 – the only one comparable to last Monday’s tremors – which recorded a magnitude of 7.8 and over 30,000 deaths. Also in 1999, in the space of three months, from August to November, there were three tremors of magnitude greater than 7 in the Black Sea area which caused tens of thousands of deaths in the province of Izmit.
This dramatic occurrence has profoundly marked the country, contributing to the electoral success of Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the 2002 elections as a result of the government’s inability to manage the emergency. In the following years the newfound awareness of the risks of earthquakes on Turkish soil led to the approval of new anti-seismic regulations for buildings that have not, however, found a large implementation, as denounced by industry insiders and also by the President himself following the earthquake that struck the city of Van of 2011 causing hundreds of deaths. However, this did not prevent the same government from approving a new one in 2018 building amnesty which had the effect of legitimizing the indiscriminate drive to build to make up for the economic weakness on international markets.
However, it is the first time that earthquakes have hit southeastern Turkey with such intensity. The earthquake that affected Kahramanmaraş in recent days is in fact the product of million years of displacements of the Arabian plate northward which compressed the Anatolian peninsula towards the Eurasian plate. This geological process released on February 6 an amount of energy comparable to an explosion that to date has killed almost 35,000 people – a number that is expected to double.
The humanitarian response
Turkish President Erdoğan, in expressing his condolences to the victims of the earthquake, described Monday’s events as uncontrollable natural phenomena, fruit of “destiny”. These words have generated strong indignation among all those who argue that more could have been done to avoid the tragedy. However, the proximity of the epicenter to the surface, the type of fault and the presence of numerous inhabited centers throughout the area are considered by many seismological experts as the worst possible scenario. But that is to be expected the government’s response to this crisis will prove decisive for the choices of Turkish citizens called to the polls next May.
Adding to the destruction and deaths are the difficulties associated with humanitarian intervention in adverse weather conditions, especially in the northern Syria; area affected not only by the effects of the earthquake, but also by a fragile geopolitical balance. If on the one hand the Assad regime is consolidating, the Turkish military presence remains strong in the provinces close to the border, justified by security concerns that returned to the fore following the terrorist attack in Istanbul last November. In this area subjected to more than a decade of conflict, now apparently abandoned to itself, the reconstruction and return to normality will still have to wait.
In all affected areas, human solidarity was the first form of relief, awaiting a government response that was slow in coming: from the frantic rush to contact one’s acquaintances to sharing a piece of warm bread, everyone made what they had available. For days, the mosques hosted families frightened by the arrival of darkness and frost, but unwilling to leave their loved ones, loved ones and their city; reception rooms were promptly made available to be transformed into shelters; restaurants and bars that hosted live music until the day before have converted their kitchens to feed the displaced; the trees and benches of the numerous parks of Gaziantep have become, with a little ingenuity, makeshift camps to shelter from bad weather.
Even now, in the sunny coastal cities cruelly removed from the post-apocalyptic atmosphere that hovers in the southeast of the country, the emergency centers are teeming with volunteers and the streets are carpeted with a simple and profound message: Get well soon Turkey, “che tu possa guarire presto”.
Cover photo EPA/NECATI SAVAS