A month after devastating twin earthquakes, tremors are still ravaging southern Turkey, but Havva Arslan, a mother of three, finally feels safe in her small but sturdy container home.
Arslan, her husband and their three children survived being trapped under the rubble of their five-story apartment building for five days.
The fact that the whole family made it out alive makes their story a rare survival story in the city of Nurdagi, where most of the buildings have collapsed or are slated to be demolished.
It’s been barely two weeks since the family was released from the hospital, and the five of them are trying to pick up what they call their past lives.
They gently restore routine in their makeshift new home behind a gas station.
“We were a wealthy family. We had two houses and a car. We were thankful to God for that. And we are now thankful that all my children are safe. I’m not afraid anymore now that my family is standing next to me,” Havva said as she sat next to a wooden picnic table after a family breakfast.
Havva and her husband, Hasan, lost 36 of their relatives in the earthquake and the grief is raw.
One of their relatives, grandmother Arslan, lives with a broken foot in a container next door.
Acquaintances come by to offer their condolences.
Hasan, an accountant, says he will be ready to return to work soon.
“Customers have started calling again. The governor has sent a container to the city accountants, the guild will send a computer and a printer. I’ll start where I left off,” says Hasan.
He points to a dusty metal safe containing documents he salvaged from his collapsed office.
Both parents are happy that two of their children, one in group 4 and one in group 8, can go back to classes.
“Children need school,” says Havva, adding that authorities are setting up a school in a nearby tent town where the children will initially return for two days a week.
‘WE ALL LIVE’
The eldest daughter, Fatmagul, 19, has started preparing for university entrance exams, which she will take in a few months.
“I wanted her to go to college, but only if she felt she could, so I waited,” Havva said.
“One day I woke up, opened my eyes and saw her sitting at the table studying. “We have to start somewhere, mom,” she said.”
The night the earthquake hit, the parents and the three children rushed to hold each other as the violent shaking hit.
As walls collapsed around them, the floor below gave way and the Arslan family fell down one floor, while the four floors above collapsed around them seconds later.
They were trapped in a pitch-back room, with no food or water and no idea how much time passed as the hours turned into days.
After a while, the family, starting with the parents, began to hallucinate.
“I was hungry. I saw apples and pears but couldn’t hold them. My mother was talking on a phone she didn’t have,” said Fatmagul.
Finally, a rescue team forced their way in through a crevice to their cries for help.
“’My name is Fatmagul Arslan’, I shouted. “We are here with five people. We are all alive,’ I said.”
And then the moment of rescue: “Light came through, I heard a noise and then saw the eyes of a man,” said Fatmagul.
The death toll in Turkey from the earthquakes has risen to nearly 46,000, with about 6,000 dead in neighboring Syria.
