For days, the port of Iskenderun has been burning. The double earthquake of February 6, of magnitudes 7.7 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, devastated this Mediterranean city, and all of southern Turkey. Tall orange flames shoot from dozens of burning containers, but no fire truck in sight. No more Canadair planes.
The thick column of black smoke from the fire envelops this city founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The smell of plastic is mixed with that of the makeshift fires lit everywhere by the survivors, forced to spend the night outside in the winter cold, burning what comes to hand to try to warm themselves . Will this dense smoke bring some warmth to those who remain trapped in the rubble of their buildings? The sea, which rose 200 meters in places, invaded certain avenues, where cars trying to flee the city gave up trying to make their way.
In the rubble, the absence of the state
In this end-of-the-world landscape, the sound of sirens hits that of construction machinery. Mustafa Topkaya arrived from Adana, 150 kilometers to the north, three days after the earthquake. He took his backhoe and enough gas to last a few days. With his colleagues from a local construction company, they take turns driving backhoes to try, somehow, to clear the debris of several collapsed buildings, hoping to find survivors there. “We have just freed an elderly lady and her son, but we have to be careful, the vibrations we create can cause the walls that are still standing to collapse,” explains the young man, who is afraid of inadvertently completing survivors.
On the ruins of the same building, a team of rescuers from the Akut association, founded in 1996 by Turkish mountaineers, is busy. From time to time, one of its members, perched on a pile of rubble, asks for the machines to stop. Everyone cuts contact, conversations stop. Only the sobs of a family of victims resonate. “Can anyone hear me?” shouts a rescuer in the hope that, from the pile of debris, a voice or blows against a wall will answer his call and direct his search.
In the streets of Iskenderun, ordinary citizens feed the survivors and provide them with blankets. In the ruins, machine operators, volunteer rescuers and even underground miners give their time. Apart from a few ambulances, the Turkish state is totally absent. “People are helpless, mothers roam the streets screaming and begging us to save their children from the rubble, it’s only natural to come to their aid”, testifies Mustafa, machine driver. “This solidarity goes beyond the border, Greece [NDLR : l’ennemi traditionnel, avec lequel les tensions montent depuis des mois] immediately sent rescuers, we are all caught up in the same momentum of humanity, he appreciates. Even the PKK [NDLR : la guérilla kurde, réfugiée dans les montagnes d’Irak] announced a ceasefire and said it was willing to send volunteers to help.”
More than 8,000 people were rescued from the rubble, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced. But how many thousands more could have been if relief had been better coordinated, public services better equipped and more responsive? In a country where the seismic risk is however proven, and constantly reminded by the scientific community, the State appears to be failing and ill-prepared.
Residents in the rubble of collapsed buildings after a strong earthquake on February 12, 2023 in Antakya, Turkey.
© / afp.com/Yasin AKGUL
Because the public authorities have not been able to prevent the destruction either. A legislative arsenal has existed since 1999 and the earthquake in Izmit, near Istanbul, which killed 18,000 people. This did not prevent buildings, however recent, from collapsing, while others, neighbors, remained standing. Obviously, the standards are far from being respected. “Some contractors cut corners on the price of steel and use very little of it,” Mustafa says, pointing to a thin metal rod emerging from the rubble. This unreinforced concrete cannot withstand the shocks of an earthquake.
About fifty kilometers to the north, the small town of Erzin has been miraculously preserved. Not a building collapsed. “I simply fought during my mandates against all illegal constructions, explained its mayor, Okkes Elmasoglu, in the Turkish press. As long as we do not respect the rules, our country will continue to live these tragedies…” These same rules, when they are not rendered obsolete by corruption and local nepotism, they are circumvented by the State itself. Before the 2018 elections, President Erdogan launched a wave of “real estate amnesty” which allowed, with a small fine, the regularization of nearly 6 million homes, built or extended without authorization.
A leaden screed against protest
Faced with rising anger across the country, the government has chosen the path of intimidation. Two days after the disaster, the Turkish president warned the “dishonorable liars” who would dare to criticize the action of the State. On the same day, the social network Twitter, widely used in the country, was cut by the authorities to fight “disinformation”, even though it was used to coordinate assistance teams and victims trapped under the rubble could call for help there.
The presidential party, the AKP, and its ally MHP (extreme right) were also quick to politically attack the actors of the humanitarian aid granted to the 1.5 million victims. They focused their anger on the NGO Ahbap, founded by left-wing singer Haluk Levent, which has collected tens of millions of euros in donations. Its website has been the victim of massive computer attacks. A truck loaded with humanitarian aid sent by the opposition HDP (pro-Kurdish) party from Izmir was intercepted by the police, who beat up the people on board… They were arrested for having sent aid “without authorization” from the prefecture.
Before the earthquake, the whole country was holding its breath in view of the May 14 elections. Today, these are compromised: the power intends to postpone them, and the opposition has postponed the announcement of its single candidate to beat Erdogan. Having come to power in the wake of the 1999 earthquake, in part because of the indignation aroused by the bankruptcy of the State, the Turkish president knows that an electoral campaign could be fatal to him. But the Constitution obliges the elections to be held before June 18, unless Parliament votes otherwise, motivated by a “state of war”.
In the ranks of the AKP, some put forward the idea of a much longer postponement of the election – by six months or even a year. The answer of the leader of the main opposition party and probable future opponent of Erdogan, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, was not long in coming: “We have had enough of your incompetence, we don’t have another year to give you , or even a single day. Do not be afraid of the choice of ballot boxes.” Turkey has not finished suffering the aftershocks of the February 6 tragedy.