I’m Not Drinking Coffee This Month
I will send the money to the earthquake zone
On 17th August 1999, I woke up at 3.02 in my parents' apartment to my brother shaking my bed frame violently with his foot.
Except, I was sleeping on a floor mattress that night. There was no bed frame. It was all in my imagination that my brother was shaking my bed. It was an earthquake with a size of 7.4.
I heard cracking, rattling, breaking glasses, swearing, and screaming. We all jumped out of our beds. We waited for the shaking to end under a door frame. Later I found out that the earthquake lasted 40 seconds. But it felt like an eternity.
I thought it was the end
The apartment was on the ground floor of a six-story building. If the building collapsed, there was no chance we would survive.
As soon as the shake stopped, we quickly put some clothes on and went out to the street. As far as we could see, there wasn’t any serious damage in our street. We spent the night outside. It was a beautiful starry August night. We had simple cell phones with no internet. One of the neighbors had a radio, which told us 7 people died in a faraway town, and 12 in another. We had no idea how big the damage was.
We tried to relieve our nerves by telling jokes and laughing nervously. The next day, we were afraid to get back in the house because we didn’t know how safe the building was and the aftershocks went on. But we had to eat, and we were curious, so we went in for short periods of time to take some food and turn on the TV briefly.
That was when we saw the ruined cities and collapsed high-rise buildings that have turned into dust. Needless to say, my family spent the next three nights on the street as well.
My brother, who is a mountaineer, grabbed his tent and some supplies on the first day and went to the area to join the search and rescue teams. One thing he said afterward stayed with me all these years. He and a group of rescuers went into a ruined town where no one went yet and began digging through the debris to save anyone they could find. After nightfall, they could hear a choir of voices shouting, crying, and groaning under the debris from all sides. They dug night and day in desperation saving as many people as they could, listening to the voices get quieter and quieter until they eventually stopped.
The official number of deaths in this earthquake was 17.127. But the unofficial estimates were as high as 30.000. The estimated direct cost of damages was $6.5 billion US dollars, however, the indirect costs likely surpassed $20 billion.
Yesterday’s (6th February 2023) earthquake was ten times bigger
Like the 1999 earthquake, yesterday’s one affected a large area containing multiple large cities. But this one was in the south of Turkey and north of Syria. The cities affected were Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaraş, Osmaniye, Adıyaman, Malatya, Şanlıurfa, Adana, Diyarbakır and Kilis in Turkey and Latakia, Hama, Aleppo, and Tartus in Syria.
The size of the earthquake was 7.8. The difference between a 7.4 and 7.8 earthquake lies in the magnitude, which is a measure of the energy released by the earthquake. The magnitude scale used to measure earthquakes is logarithmic, meaning that a difference of 0.4 in magnitude represents a tenfold difference in energy released. This increase in energy release results in stronger shaking, more widespread damage, and a greater impact on the surrounding area.
Also, the shaking lasted for 2 minutes compared to 40 seconds which caused even bigger damage.
Earthquakes are terrible anywhere, but it’s especially horrifying when one hits war-torn Syria, especially Aleppo, which was destroyed a few years ago.
Photos and videos are devastating. If you go to Twitter, you will see countless videos of building collapsing in real-time, and it is nerve-wracking. According to AFAD (the Turkish government’s disasters and emergency management unit), a total of 2834 buildings have collapsed in Turkey. CNN reported 5606.
It is hard to watch these heartbreaking videos without crying. They all look like shot in a dystopian world. Buildings collapsing left and right. Little kids being saved from the rubble. A baby just born in the rubble from a dead mother.
It is February
February is the opposite of August. It is the coldest time of the year in Turkey and it is snowing in some places right now. The warmest temperature these days in the earthquake area is 4°C and it drops as low as -8°C (17.6°F) at night.
Survivors of the earthquake are unable to enter their homes and access their clothing. Even if their home is still standing, it is weakened, and the after-shocks cause more and more buildings to collapse every minute.
People don’t have food and water, and they can’t get help for their family members still underneath the rubble, and the most important 72 hours are quickly disappearing.
On the positive side, there is Twitter
In 1999 most people trapped in the rubble didn’t have cell phones, and even if they did, they could only call a few people from their contact list, who were unlikely to be able to help.
But after the latest earthquake, Twitter has hundreds of people’s messages sent from collapsed buildings, giving their addresses and asking for help. These earthquake rescue calls on Twitter were used to build a geographical map to help rescuers.
I guess there are some pros to sleeping with your phone.
People react to disasters in different ways
Turkish people are polarized on political subjects and you can see lots of negativity in discussions most of the time. But when a disaster hits most people unite and organize ways to help the ones who lost their homes.
Whatsapp groups I belong to are activated for solidarity. The screenwriters’ union, for example, is collecting donations from the members to buy supplies to send to the area. Filmmakers are organizing a campaign to send film equipment such as generators and lights, as well as trailers and mobile toilets to the region.
At the same time, some people buy cement stocks because they think the prices will go up for the new buildings that will have to be to be built after the debris is cleared. I felt that was quite tasteless.
I am in New Zealand now and my family lives in Istanbul, so we are not directly affected by the earthquake. Even if I cannot be there to help, I feel lucky that I can financially contribute to the efforts.
I believe it is important to help people pick up the pieces after a disaster. People can work, and look after themselves and their families better when they are healthy and don’t have to struggle to survive. So instead of going out to cafes this month, I decided to help and I sent my extra money to the screenwriters who raise money to help the cause.
If you understand how terrible it is to be in a situation like that and wish to relieve one person or two in these hard times, you can help in various ways, too. If you are in Turkey, you can volunteer for charity work, or donate blood.
If you are away, like me, you can check out this article to donate money to UNICEF, Turkish Red Crescent or Doctors Without Borders, or you can support AFAD.
If you cannot donate at this time, you can help raise awareness on social media. The priority now is to ensure the safety of the people and provide them with essential services like food, water, and medical aid. The government, rescue teams, and volunteers are working tirelessly to provide relief and support to those in need.
It is important to stand in solidarity with the affected communities and wish them the strength and resilience to overcome this difficult time.
