Two sisters who spent more than four days trapped in the rubble of their collapsed apartment say the whole block slid in one direction as last week’s enormous earthquake struck in southern Turkey.
They were speaking to Sky News as the people of Kahramanmaras begin the process of reclaiming their community from the destruction that marks their city.
Plastic tents have been erected in parks and plazas and the authorities have started to restore power and water.
While the survivors will face months or even years of discomfort as they begin to rebuild their lives, there are acts of courage they can draw upon.
Each of a small number of residents rescued from the rubble possesses a tale of wonder.
We first caught a glimpse of sisters Zeynep and Elife Civi as they were carried out of the remains of their seven-storey apartment block on a pair of battered-looking stretchers after it collapsed in the early hours of Monday 6 February.
Zeynep, 22, was crying and shivering in a pair of polka-dot pyjamas.
“Yes, I was crying because I was so happy,” she said. “I was shivering because it was very cold. It was so cold, I couldn’t feel my feet.”
We met them at Kahramanmaras’s University Hospital, where they are now recovering from their ordeal.
Law student Elife is 20. She told us she would not have survived without Zeynep.
“I was lucky to have my big sister with me, because if I had been by myself it would have been much harder,” she said. “We were under the bed. We survived together. It was cold and we were afraid.”
I asked Elife what happened when the tremors began. “We thought it would shake a little and stop but that didn’t happen,” she said.
“The building slid – I felt it slide like this,” she said, indicating how the entire building started to move in one direction. “The whole room slid.”
Zeynep made a critical decision when she realised the block was about to implode.
“I was about to go to my mother’s (room),” she said. “I stopped at that moment and waited. I heard the sound of the building crashing down, floor by floor, like ‘boom’, ‘boom’. At that moment, I put the head of Elife (under) the bed, and then I got under the bed. That is how it happened.”
The Civi sisters were trapped in an air pocket under Zeynep’s bed with no possible means of escape.
“We were close to each other,” Zeynep said, “but we had enough room to turn left or right and the height was like this,” she explained, putting her hand just above her head. “I was able to sit up when my legs went numb and I turned to the other side.”
It was damp and cold – the temperature plunging below zero at night – and they had nothing to eat and drink. Did their predicament seem hopeless, I asked.
“Yes,” Elife replied. “I thought that if they didn’t rescue us on the last day, that would be it. I couldn’t go on without water. I couldn’t sleep because I was so thirsty. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t scream. We had to scream when we heard a sound (outside), but I was no longer able to scream. I couldn’t scream anymore.”
Many of their neighbours in the block, and in nearby buildings, lost their lives. We saw local people trying to retrieve the bodies of residents that were wedged between the cracks of concrete. Seeking some dignity, volunteers held up blankets to shield the victims from view.
The whereabouts of thousands of people in Kahramanmaras are currently unknown – a number that includes Zeynep and Eilfe’s mother and father, who are missing.
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Their daughters are deeply concerned. Zeynep said: “I was calling out for my mother – are you ok? I couldn’t hear anything. It was very bad.”
The sisters did have company of sorts under the rubble. There was a man with a baby in an air pocket on the floor below them, and together they tried to raise the alarm. On the morning of the fourth day, they heard a member of an Israeli-Turkish rescue team call out to them.
“I had some cream in my hand and so I started tapping with the (cream’s) box,” Elife said. “The man who was under us was also shouting – we had a connection at that moment.
“I thought the rescue team had come to rescue the man and child but they came to us. They heard our voices and they asked my name. I said ‘Elife’ and I told them my sister’s name. It was an unbelievable moment. At that moment I said: ‘We’re saved.'”
By that stage, Zeynep had already given up hope of being found, she told us.
“We heard some machines, but that was on the first day and the second day. I told Elife: ‘They have forgotten us, why didn’t they come, why has no one come to rescue us?'”
Zeynep went on: “On the last day I had lost hope. I told Elife: ‘We will die, you know?’ Finally, we heard a low sound and then they came to us and said ‘we can hear you’ and we did our best to make a sound. Eventually they brought us out.”
The sisters suffered cuts and bruising and were badly dehydrated. Both still feel desperately tired, but are glad to be alive.
How will this experience change your life, I asked Elife.
“I believe that everything happens in a second,” she said. “Maybe we are alive now, but we can disappear tomorrow. That’s why I will live life to the fullest.”
Their story of resilience shines like a light in this devastated city. Their fellow residents – and survivors – will require similar qualities to get through the coming months and years.
