Early on the morning of the 6th of this month, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southeast Turkey and northern Syria. More than 5,000 buildings collapsed in an instant in Turkiye alone, and many people were buried under the rubble. Among them was high school student Taha Erdem (17, photo).
Taha’s four-story low-income apartment in Adiyaman, central-east, collapsed within 10 seconds of the quake. Taha fell headlong, along with his father, mother and younger siblings. When Taha came to his senses, he found himself under a huge mass of rubble. The fear of death soon came. However, in the face of dead-end fear, Taha thought of leaving a will to reflect on her life. I started recording my last goodbye on my phone. Because he believed that even if he died, the records would be handed down if the cell phone was found.
Taha calmly started recording in an unmoving space. And he left the following words: “I think this is the last video I will shoot”, “My friends, death comes at the most unexpected time”, “There are many things I regret. May God forgive all my sins”, “If I go out alive, there are many things I want to do”, “I will see my family soon following I die”. Even as he recorded, the screams of others trapped in the rubble might be heard incessantly. Fortunately, Taha was rescued safely following two hours. Ten hours following the earthquake, Taha’s family was also rescued with the help of neighbors.
The video released following Taha’s rescue showed how strong humans can be in the face of cataclysm. Meanwhile, Taha was safely rescued, but the Turkiye Disaster Management Agency ended the search operation on the 18th of this month and counted 40,642 people killed by the earthquake. It is said to be the sixth largest earthquake damage in the past 20 years.
The disaster occurred in an area bordering two countries, Turkey and Syria. However, there is a difference in the countermeasures and damage patterns that followed. The situation in Turkiye, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is a little better. Syria, which has been going through a long civil war, is said to be virtually neglected due to the confrontation between the rebels and the government forces, with weak support from the international community and slow relief work. It is pointed out that the Syrian government intentionally delays relief because the earthquake occurred in the center of the rebels.
John C Murter, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University in the US, said in ‘Disaster Inequality’ that disasters seem to take many lives indiscriminately, but ‘the number is greater in poor areas’. Natural disasters seem fair to everyone like fate, but in fact, they are more cruel to the poor and weak beings. That is why we are reminded of the age-old truth that ‘love for humanity comes before anything else’ in the face of the Turkish-Syrian catastrophe.
Euijin Lee Teacher at Nuwon High School [email protected]
