Turkey's quake survivors welcome church aid

By Daniel R. Gangler*

This boy is one of the tens of thousands who lost their homes after the earthquakes. Photo by Diana Barnett. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Witnessing the devastation of Turkey's killer earthquakes and the spirit of the survivors left a mark on my mind and soul that will last a lifetime. I have never seen such widespread devastation. I covered the aftermath of California's deadly North Ridge quake in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, but compared to Turkey, the California quakes were localized.

Last August and November, two earthquakes in Turkey spanned more than 100 miles and followed an entire mountain ridge. One survivor of the deadly 45-second horror in August said that instead of rocking back and forth, this quake lifted everything straight up, then dropped it to earth.

With its movement, the quake toppled or fractured more than 10,000 buildings from Istanbul to Bolu, killing 17,000 people. Most of those buildings were high-rise apartments. When floors fell in on each other, lives were crushed. A second quake in November claimed another 800 lives. Now, three months later, more than 500,000 people are still homeless, living in thousands of tents and small-prefabricated government houses. It is winter, and snow blankets the entire country, making survival -- let alone demolition and construction -- difficult.

I recently visited Bolu, Ducze and Kaynasli, 120 miles east of Istanbul. About 85 percent of all three places were destroyed. Each had tents and prefabricated houses as far as the eye could see.

I accompanied Alina Turtoi, disaster relief coordinator, and Amaniel Bagdas, coordinator of Turkey Action Churches Together. TACT is a coalition of all the Christian churches in Turkey that work directly with the government in relief efforts. The Turkish government oversees all relief work. The Rev. Alan "Mick" McCain, a United Church of Christ missionary, also accompanied us.

Turtoi, Bagdas and McCain, who live in Istanbul, took me with them to distribute 4,000 personal hygiene kits and 1,000 baby layettes in Bolu and Kaynasli. The drive east, across snow-covered mountains from Istanbul to Bolu, took three hours and two tea breaks.

Every village and town we drove by gave painful evidence of a massive disaster. Cracked and leaning concrete high-rise apartments and heavily damaged commercial buildings were always in sight. Every town and village had a tent city or rows of prefabricated houses nearby. The size of these temporary camps was proportionate to the amount of destruction we witnessed.

At Bolu, we met up with about a dozen large cardboard boxes shipped by Church World Service from New Windsor, Md., to the Bolu city water department, which held the relief items until we arrived. Within an hour, we checked in with local authorities, who escorted us with the boxes to one of many tent cities surrounding Bolu, a city of 80,000 that had around 50,000 residents living in tents and prefabricated houses.

Money for the relief efforts given by United Methodists to the United Methodist Committee on Relief is funneled through Church World Service and the World Council of Churches to TACT. Church World Service is the relief arm of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.

These efforts are visible in Turkey. In the middle of a snowy field, divided off into 10 city blocks, was an encampment of 1,000 white and green winterized tents housing approximately 4,500 survivors. The tents were donated by various faith-based relief organizations. The 100 winterized insulated green-colored tents here were constructed by TACT to house 400 female nursing students who attend Izett Baysal University in Bolu.

At a large tent in the middle of the camp, the Church World Service boxes were opened, as authorities requested that the most needy families with small children come to the distribution center. Within minutes the first residents arrived, short Muslim women dressed in hooded clothes with only their faces exposed. Most came with an infant in their arms ready to receive their kits. Families were given one personal hygiene kit for each member and one baby layette for each infant. The health kits contained such supplies as toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, washcloth and other personal items. Most welcomed by parents were the layettes with baby care products. In December, TACT delivered kits and blankets to these same areas.

These quiet survivors greeted Turtoi, Bagdas and McCain with smiles and words of gratitude. This was one of those precious moments when gifts assembled and packed with love in United Methodist churches and others across the United States reached their final destination in the arms of grateful Turks, who have lost most of everything.

Turtoi described the relief supplies as more than material gifts. "We have given these people hope, we have provided for their needs."

The village of Kaynasli and the city of Ducze were the hardest-hit areas that we visited. They have the dubious distinction of sustaining the highest property damage of any place in Turkey. Both communities appear to have been hit by war. Now most of the residents live in tents, which line the main thoroughfares.

Riding down streets in Ducze, I saw row after row of high-rise apartment buildings cracked in several places. Some buildings leaned to the right, others to the left. Framed houses were reduced to rubble covered by roofs.

Despite cracked buildings with shattered glass and crumbled streets, despite water from tank trucks or a neighborhood faucet, despite soup lines and bathroom lines, despite thousands of tents and prefabricated houses sitting in six inches of snow, survivors carried on their lives because there is a tomorrow.

A nursing student from her tent home in Bolu said it well: "We are looking forward, not backward." There were many words about tomorrow among tent dwellers.

Part of that hope comes through the millions of dollars that churches and other faith-based relief groups have sent to enable local relief efforts through groups such as TACT, which works with an estimated 200 nongovernmental organizations.

An example of that hope could be seen in the midst of a Ducze tent city soup kitchen line. There was the beaming face of a young woman clutching a half-dozen loaves of bread. Even though it was cold with slush underfoot, and even though there seemed to be no momentum to provide permanent housing, the children were playing in the streets and life teemed as a people moved bravely forward to carve out a new future.

For me, it was a privileged moment. I felt good about being United Methodist, able to contribute to the lives of so many. The survivors of Turkey’s earthquakes are a long way from normal living, but they are on the road to recovery. Our church has played and will continue to play a role as their partners into tomorrow.

Financial contributions to UMCOR's work in Turkey can be designated to UMCOR Advance # 675205-6 and dropped in church collection plates or mailed directly to 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donations can be made by calling (800) 554-8583.

*Gangler is a free-lance writer for Disaster News Network.