Eight days after the devastating earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, hope is diminishing to find survivors, and waiting for miracles to save more lives from under the rubble. Feelings of despair and anger dominate the families of the victims.

"I lost my soul";

With these words, the Turkish Didam Celik sums up the tragedy. Despite her survival and rescue on the sixth of February, she is frustrated and desperate, as her mother and sister are still under the rubble of their demolished building in the city of Iskenderun, in the state of Hatay in southern Turkey.

In a video testimony, Çelik said that she was disturbed and sad because of the devastation caused by the earthquake, indicating that she no longer expects anything from any party, not even from the Turkish government, according to the French newspaper Le Monde.


The date of mourning

With little hope of finding survivors, after more than 200 hours, the time has come for some to declare mourning and start organizing funerals for the victims.

Some people find themselves alone after losing all their family members, which compounds their tragedy, according to what was confirmed by the Turkish volunteer Abdul Azim Ibrahim, who volunteered to help the families of the "emotionally shaken" victims, as he described it.

As for the future, it is vague and full of doubts in the eyes of the victims, and one of the survivors, who was sheltered in a makeshift camp in Kerekhan, says that he is worried about what the future holds for his country, after it has been “settled.”


among the dead

In a report, the French newspaper L'Humanité said that life in the city of Iskenderun has turned into a life amidst the rubble and the dead, and although the death toll is not known, everyone is crying.

And the newspaper indicated that at the foot of a building that had turned into a pile of rubble, a number of survivors re-arranged their daily lives, while dozens of families established what looked like homes among the alleys of streets and boulevards of public parks.

According to the newspaper, everyone is exhausted, but no one can really sleep.


Unprecedented

In another report published by the same French newspaper documenting "testimonies of a catastrophe the likes of which we have not seen before," Doctor Salah al-Din Jamal al-Din said while he was leaving the city of Gaziantep, "There is nothing left, neither water nor gas, and the remaining houses are not safe, what We still feel the tremors."

It is noteworthy that the death toll from the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria exceeded 37,000, after more bodies were recovered from under the rubble of destroyed buildings in the two countries.