All you can see is neighborhoods where rubble is being cleared off; massive voids in traditional bazaars; severely and moderately damaged buildings waiting to be demolished; roads closed off due to wreckages; tough living conditions in tent cities and container homes; glassy and desperate looks on people’s faces; people trying to evacuate furniture from their damaged homes and stores; long lines of people in the aid and damage assessment tents; public officers trying to provide service in tents that are set up instead of collapsed public buildings or in slightly damaged public buildings; people shopping from stores that serve in temporary tents and containers; rubble dumped on the roadside along the entry and exit of the settlements; wrecking yards where vehicles that were buried under the rubble are stored; trucks that carry the rubble and/or furniture; wrecking cranes; excavators; and dust and dirt.

In summary, you see those who try to survive, those who seek hope despite the agony. Those who wait for their family members, neighbors, fellows, and customers; distressed and exhausted earthquake victims who struggle to survive.

The essence of the settlements, which blends cultural and demographic diversity of this privileged geography, has been lost. The rubble has created small or large spatial voids, while hopes that are lost created mental gaps. In summary, the clock in the region is pegged between yesterday and today, and agony and despair have taken over the hopeful wait for the rescue of loved ones from the rubble. 

The optimistic wait in the geography of those who come and go becomes meaningful with the following expression: “(one’s) hometown calls for them, they will try to come.” People in the region cherish hopes despite all that has happened and all the difficulties that they endure. The most notable sign of hope is the traces of the layered civilizations that have been established and destroyed over thousands of years in this fertile and collective geography emerging from the water-oriented cultures.

Ali Faruk Göksu