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Change Your Life! |
Many homeless year after Turk quake |
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August 16, 2000
IZMIT, Turkey (AP) -- It has been a year since Ayse Karatas grabbed her 3-year-old granddaughter, wrenched open a window and jumped out of her apartment building to escape a shattering earthquake. Since surviving the quake, Karatas and her family have been living in a tent donated by the U.S. government and using a nearby garden hose to fill jugs with water for drinking and washing. They are not alone. Some 26,000 survivors of the Aug. 17, 1999, quake that devastated Turkey's industrial heartland are living in tent cities. An additional 150,000 people live in cramped prefabricated homes that are oppressively hot in summer and bitterly cold in winter. "We have nothing,'' said Karatas, as she sat outside her green tent sucking on an ice cube in the stifling heat. "The state doesn't care about us.'' It's a bitterness that was widely felt after the 7.4-magnitude earthquake destroyed poorly built apartment houses, crushing some 17,000 people as they slept. The quake virtually leveled parts of Izmit, 60 miles east of Istanbul, and other towns in western Turkey. But anger is fading toward a government that at first appeared ineffective and slow to react. People no longer question whether the state is still there to help them. Criticism of rescue efforts led by the military, the most respected Turkish institution, is dissipating and the Turkish press rarely mentions the thousands of people like Karatas, the wife of a retired baker, who are too poor to find their own homes. "It's sad, but it seems that they are an afterthought,'' said Alan Makovsky, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Initially, the Turkish response to the disaster was so disorganized that foreign rescue teams had to ask civilians for advice on where to go. But Turks feel their government has handled the post-quake cleanup well. The number of people in tent cities has fallen from some 120,000 after the quake to 26,000 today and the government expects that number to decline sharply in the coming months. Free meals, rent subsidies The cash-strapped state gives some 56,000 families $155 a month in rent subsidies and has provided free meals to some 195,000 survivors for most of the past year. When a second, much smaller quake struck in November, the government and the military reacted quickly. Relief teams were dispatched and, although almost 1,000 people died in that quake, the rescue efforts appeared to be well coordinated. "It seemed to be a statement that the government has learned its lesson,'' Makovsky said. "I think that the government has recouped its honor.'' The government also received a boost when the European Union in December agreed to accept Turkey as a candidate for membership, bringing the country one step closer to its long cherished goal of integration with the West. Preparing for the next one The government has taken extensive measures to prepare for a new quake, which seismologists warn could happen at any time. In Izmit, the hard-hit town where Karatas lives, mobile rescue teams are prepared for deployment within four hours of a disaster. A quake coordination headquarters has been built in a field, far from any tall buildings. Government officials have walkie-talkies in their offices so that they can be reached if phone lines are cut. For new buildings, inspections and insurance will be required, officials said. "We are ready,'' says Muhammet Uygun, deputy disaster area coordinator. But that news is of little help to Karatas. Although the state gives rent credits to people whose apartments were destroyed, Karatas had no lease and was unable to prove that she had been renting an apartment in the quake zone. Although her husband receives a pension of $155 a month, rents have skyrocketed since the earthquake, which damaged more than 100,000 homes in her home province of Kocaeli alone. A small apartment would cost the family's entire monthly income. "The state doesn't care about us,'' Karatas said as her eyes turned red and swelled with tears. "They would rather we die.'' It's an anger that newly confident officials dismiss with disdain. "Our citizens are a bit ungrateful,'' Uygun said. "They always want something else no matter what you give them.'' |