• Gertrude Bean

  Online editor

• Eliane Lamber

  Online editor

“I’ve seen the buildings sway back and forth,” says Hasan Goveli from Turkey. He tells how he found himself between two buildings during the earthquake on Monday night. “They were going back and forth, always towards each other.” He is silent for a moment. “If they had collapsed, I don’t think I would be on the line now.”

Guveli arrived from Deventer in Turkey four days ago. His employer gave him permission to travel to the affected area.

Güveli is now helping with the latest searches in the disaster area in Antakya, in the middle of Hatay province. “On TV you can see how bad it is of course, but if you try it here it will be completely different.”

Joveli was meeting in Antioch when he heard a “knocking noise”. “We sat in a circle on the road and there were several soldiers six meters away from me. The earthquake shot three of them right on my knees.” He laughs in disbelief: “I’m still shaking now.”

“We clung to each other, cried and screamed. I heard everyone screaming. It was really scary.” Since everyone was out, the number of infected people isn’t bad, Joveli says. He had heard there were a few injured, but no fatalities.

The earthquake was also strongly felt in northwestern Syria, near the epicenter. “All of us in the streets are afraid of another earthquake,” says journalist and activist Majd Hamo from Idlib. People say very worried. The previous earthquake was a painful experience for the Syrians, especially in the opposition area where no outside help came.

According to Hamo, the damage is not too bad and people only suffered minor injuries. “A building collapsed nearby, but no one was inside,” says the Syrian journalist. The previous earthquake left many Syrians homeless and were already sleeping on the street, in tents or in cars.

Everyone is also on the streets of Hatay, says Guveli. According to him, no one is allowed to enter the buildings anymore and the soldiers are watching closely. “After the earthquake, people immediately wanted to go into the houses to take things out, but they weren’t allowed. They were immediately kicked out. It’s really not possible here. No one can enter the houses at the moment.”

Tomorrow Güveli will continue to the disaster area. He will work until Friday, then a two-day “compulsory rest”. After that it will be posted again for five days. He heard noises in a building in his neighborhood yesterday, two weeks after the earthquake. It is now searched for using sound and heat meters. “It really is a miracle if someone gets out alive.”

Organizing aid is getting better and better, Goveli says. “But people are going through hard times here, some of them lost their whole family. Yesterday, Guveli helped himself in a house in the center of Hatay, where a boy lost his father, mother, brothers, uncle, aunt, nephews and nieces.” You can see that they are completely broken, but they still have hope. “.

That hope keeps people going, Jovelli says. “But just now, this earthquake has made everyone panic again.”