bir yıl önce

Graveyards expand as Türkiye quake survivors bury loved ones

Death toll from twin quakes in southeastern Türkiye has soared to nearly 40,000 people and for survivors burying their friends and family members is a logistical challenge as more corpses pile up at cemeteries.

AA

Relatives mourn by the graves as new burial sites are dug at Kapicam City Cemetery in Kahramanmaras province.

In the Turkish town of Pazarcik, a football pitch has been turned into a burial ground for people killed by the earthquakes, which struck almost 12 days ago.

The goal posts are still standing but the field is dotted with about 100 dirt mounds and ditches.

Each freshly dug grave is topped with a wooden plank marking the same date of death — February 6, 2023 — when this town was devastated by the deadliest earthquake in Türkiye’s modern history.

"We waited...for 10 days to get the bodies of the deceased from under the rubble," said Huseyin Akis, who was burying his niece along with her husband and two sons.

A red scarf had been wrapped around the wooden plank at a nearby grave. Pine branches had been scattered over another.

The scene in Pazarcik, epicentre of the quake that struck in the dead of night on February 6, captured the struggle facing people trying to find and bury their dead since the disaster, which has killed more than 45,000 in Türkiye and neighbouring Syria.

At a graveyard in Kahramanmaras, thousands of new graves vastly outnumbered those which predated the earthquakes, underlining the scale of the catastrophe.

Tents had been erected to perform Islamic burial rituals, and to wrap the bodies in a shroud.

Empty coffins, sent from all over Türkiye, were piled high.

A Muslim cleric stood ready to perform the rituals.

People carried bodies in bags towards graves.

The sound of prayer recitations competed with the noise of excavators digging more ditches in the distance.

'10,000 burials'

According to Islamic traditions, the dead should be buried as quickly as possible, if not immediately.

Speaking at the Kahramanmaras cemetery this week, the deputy head of Türkiye's Religious Affairs Directorate described the difficulties in burying bodies recovered from the rubble, noting their condition sometimes meant rituals must be adapted.

"No one should think that what is necessary is not being done. Look here: our friends carried out around 10,000 burials. It is not possible to spend hours on each one, so the process is carried out in a sped up way," the official, Burhan Isleyen, said in an interview with Turkish local media.

Authorities have grappled with the problem of retrieving bodies and preparing them for burial since the earthquake, said Bulent Tekbiyikoglu, the governor of the city of Kirikkale, who was on a visit to Pazarcik.

Ghassals — who prepare bodies for burial in accordance with Islamic rituals — had been working "in rotation as hundreds of bodies piled up at once", he added.

Some families have worked with crime scene investigators to identify their dead relatives.

At another cemetery in the town of Pazarcik, hundreds of people gathered for the funeral of Ismail and Selin Yavuzatmaca and their two young daughters.

They were among hundreds of people believed to have died in a building complex called the Ronesans Rezidans, or Renaissance Residence, when it collapsed in Hatay province.

'No point in looking back'

Authorities in hard-hit provinces have arrested or detained many suspects over shoddy work that appears to have contributed to damage or collapse of some 80,000 buildings, widening February 6 disaster's almost unfathomable scale.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday pledged to first complete search and rescue efforts and then carry out accommodation and subsistence services to earthquake victims "by making sure no one suffers."

Many people are still waiting to find the bodies of their relatives.

On Friday, thousands across Türkiye participated in symbolic funerals for the dead who were still under the rubble.

"If we stay at home and listen to ourselves, we will never recover. There is no point in looking back," said Ahmet Akburak, who has buried seven relatives, speaking outside a Kahramanmaras mosque.

"We are glad we were able to get their bodies out. A lot of people became one with the debris."

SOURCE: ReutersTRT World