wfn.org | Turkey's quake survivors welcome church aid, look to future

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Feb. 7, 2000 News media contact: Thomas S. McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.  10-21-71BP{049}

NOTE: Photographs are available with this story.

A UMNS Feature
By Daniel R. Gangler*

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.

*  *  *

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

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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