The city where Mehmet Gül was born fifty-eight years ago and where he lived most of his life is a distant memory. And the neighborhood where he grew up, like all the other surroundings, a huge field of ruins. From its small shaded courtyard, in front of its gutted house, Antakya offers a staggering spectacle of chaos and desolation. “More than six months after the earthquake, the situation is still just as disastrous. Worse, no one knows where we are going”, breathes Mehmet. Until the earthquake of February 6 and its countless aftershocks, the city had 400,000 inhabitants, more than 1.7 million with its surroundings. Administrative capital of the Hatay region in southern Turkey, ancient Antioch, once the third largest city in the world, is today almost deserted, collapsed on itself, as if pulverized.
The air is saturated with noise and dust, the product of the constant crossover of mobile cranes and trucks loaded to the brim with scrap metal and rubbish. A few silhouettes pick up, here and there, rods and steel cables. The kilogram costs 6 Turkish liras (20 euro cents) from wholesalers still present. Nearly 92% of the city is to be rebuilt. And according to figures from Mayor Lütfü Savas, 90% of the population has left to live elsewhere.
Behind the tent that has served as refuge for Mehmet Gül and his family since the earthquake, the din of diggers and bulldozers increases in intensity. “You hear, they’re getting closer, my house will probably be next.” » A few weeks ago, this retired teacher found a demolition order taped to one of his still intact windows. Shortly before, two police officers had come to introduce themselves. They asked him and his little family if they had any needs. “They came five months after the disaster, exactly 152 days, you can imagine! I couldn’t tell them anything. I always believed in the State, but there, I took that for an insult. »
Mehmet acknowledges that relief was quick for food and clothing. Tents were provided. The electricity is working again and the water was reconnected in April, even if it is no longer drinkable as before. His wife Emel, herself retired, says Istanbul City Hall has also helped a lot, by sending containers and staff. “But for everything else, it’s chaos, as if the earthquake had happened yesterday. Everything is horribly slow and totally opaque. »
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