"I've never seen people so angry before"

The girl with a sad look was maybe ten or twelve years old. Staring at the cell phone camera, she hardly moved at all.

When she did move, her movements were somehow difficult. The man recording the video, the moment he saw the girl, joyfully and excitedly shouted: "There is someone here! There's someone here!"

But there is no one to answer the cry of the man with the phone and the camera turned on... There is only the silence of the snow and lead light. They are in a place in the southeast of Turkey that was razed to the ground by two earthquakes of magnitude 7,7 and 7,6.

The man with the camera now approaches the girl who is pressed from the chest down by a pile of concrete. They obviously don't know each other.

"Can you move?"

The little girl said in a weak voice: "No!" However, hope was smoldering in her eyes, because the voice she was slowly losing was still heard by someone. Half a day has passed since the first earthquake struck at 4 am. Evening will soon fall.

"Can you move your legs?"

The girl does not answer this question. An expression appears on her face as if she is hiding something, ashamed of her fault or lack. Not even the man with the mobile phone repeats his question.

"Are you thirsty?"

"I'm cold..." said the little girl and fell silent.

The snow that occasionally fell during the night and morning covers the ruins of fifteen-sixteen-story buildings as well as those of two-three stories that collapsed in three to five seconds, hiding all the pain of the earthquake, those who died as well as those who they are dying right now.

It is understood that the man who recorded the video with his mobile phone was indecisive in that silence. He can't pull a little girl with sad eyes and a sad look out of that terrible, narrow pile of concrete by himself. They both fell silent now.

The girl's gaze is dull, fatigue and pain are visible on her face.

"Now wait here, I'm going to get you help right away. We'll get you out of here.”

But the voice of the man with the mobile phone is uncertain. It is most likely a suburb of a completely destroyed city. No help arrived as roads and bridges were destroyed. Most likely, it won't even arrive in due time.

The people who lived there, those who escaped from their homes destroyed in the snowy and dark night and the other lucky survivors probably went somewhere else to escape the cold. There is no one to look for or inquire, probably because there are no other survivors from this house.

"Don't go!" finally says the little girl stuck in the pile of concrete.

"I'll leave, but I'll be back," says the man with the phone, "I won't forget you, I'll bring help."

It is clear that the girl who spent more than half a day stuck under a pile of concrete is ready to die, she doesn't even have the strength to complain.

Nevertheless, he repeated in a whisper: "Don't go!".

"I'll go and bring you help," the man says louder this time, but still not convincing enough.

After that, the video recorded by the phone ends. We don't know if the man brought help or not. But he simply posted the footage on Twitter without any comment.

Getting help isn't as easy as the man with the cell phone thought.

According to data published by the state, around seven thousand buildings were destroyed or damaged in the region. Just as the smaller number of dead is announced, the number of destroyed buildings is also hidden.

There is no information about what happened in smaller cities and towns as the electricity was cut off, mobile phones were not working due to overload and roads were closed. We read on Twitter that some smaller towns were completely destroyed, but is that true?

There are injured and those who are dying in the cold, trapped under the rubble and a pile of concrete like a little girl with sad eyes.

If in every collapsed building there were three people waiting for someone to save them while they mourned dead and buried family members, we can conclude that close to twenty thousand people were waiting for help below and in piles of concrete that were being snowed in. Experts and trained people who were supposed to reach them, complain about the lack of transportation at airports and roads.

Even the largest media, newspaper and television companies only managed to reach the big cities after half a day, which turned into hell after the earthquake due to collapsed airports and closed roads. Half a day after the disaster, millions of people were on the snowy, rainy and windy streets, scared and angry, waiting for help.

According to the data presented by the state, the earthquake affected about 13,5 million people.

What makes this disaster even more terrible (apocalyptic) is the second 7,7-magnitude earthquake that struck nine hours after the first, overnight 7,8-magnitude earthquake.

This second earthquake, whose epicenter was about one hundred and fifty to four hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the first one, created horror scenes for millions of people who were already on the streets due to the aftershocks of the first earthquake.

The masses who were on the streets asking for help or a piece of bread, who returned to the ruins of the sixteen-story buildings to collect the remains with their bare hands, and who were looking for a warm, closed place to take shelter, were filming with their mobile phones the buildings that were quickly destroyed by the second earthquake, in a cloud of dust. , toppled like a house of cards, occasionally exclaiming, "God, God!" Many people posted these grotesque horror pictures on social media without comment, without a single sentence, without even a single word. I noticed that those scenes of the earthquake that emerged from the disaster not only reveal a sense of solidarity and mutual help that brings tears to the eyes, but also stimulates their instincts to share, seek other witnesses, leave a mark and advertise. In the center of every big city under the ruins, everyone who was given a microphone to say something shouted: "Record, record, we need help, we need bread, where is the government, where are the rescue teams?!"

Aid has been sent, but the trucks with it are hundreds of kilometers from the regions hit by the earthquake, waiting for hours under snow on clogged roads.

Those who lost their home, family, loved ones, everything they had, see that no one intervenes in the fires that broke out in their cities and stop the government vehicles, the police, the officials they see, so they start to rebel. I have never seen people so angry before.

In another video that I watched several times, "citizens" stopped a police vehicle going to another city and in a half-questioning, half-pleading atmosphere pulled the officers out of the vehicle.

The lucky ones who got out of the earthquake alive and well, but without a home, and who wander the streets by voices understand that there are people who are still alive in the ruins and under the rubble of large residential buildings. But they do not have the strength, knowledge and equipment to save them. There is no one coming soon.

As the second evening falls, the voices coming from the ruins and rubble subside, the people on the streets get used to the terrible scene on the streets, and the mass of people gathers around the vehicles from which bread and food are distributed. But the anger, the complaints, the despair at being unprepared do not abate.

This earthquake is the biggest that has hit Turkey in the last eighty years. As for the major earthquakes that I have experienced from near or far since my childhood, it is the fourth.

After the earthquake that hit the Sea of ​​Marmara in 1999, filled with a sense of responsibility and guilt, I went to Jalova, one of the cities that was razed to the ground.

I walked for hours among the ruins saying that I might be able to lift a stone, and I came back without being able to help anyone. From the messages posted on social networks, I also learned that in the largest cities destroyed by the earthquake, there are doctors who came from far away on their own initiative to help, but there is no authority, no one in charge of directing them. Another thing that the people cannot accept is that some of the state hospitals have been demolished.

There are two messages sent by those who, without leaving any comment, upload video clips of recorded apocalyptic scenes of the disaster and horror of the earthquake that they experienced in their home on social networks.

The first is that which is expressed by wonder and their call to God: the astonishing, shocking magnitude of the disaster. It is very difficult for a person to keep his cool, the ability to experience his usual everyday feelings, and to act logically in the face of this kind of horror.

This is why there is a spontaneous feeling of solidarity and mutual help. But that's why the second message, the feeling of abandonment, despair and unpreparedness felt by the entire country, is as frightening as the earthquake.

The people jump over the rescue teams that arrive first, with "Where are you so far!". However, no aid has yet arrived in many regions. At the end of the second day, some help arrives in the centers of big cities, but not enough, and that help is very late.

(editing of the text)

Translated from the Turkish by Marija Velkovski and Rastko Jovanović