Turkish families find shelter in trains after major earthquakes | Turkey and Syria earthquake news

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Sabri Karan’s late husband worked for the Turkish National Railway Company for 32 years and her daughter Nehir grew up riding trains. After strong earthquakes hit Turkey last month and damaged her house, she and Nahir moved into one house.

“We never imagined we would live here,” said Sabria, who has been sharing a two-bed dorm room with 13-year-old Nahir for the past 18 days. “Usually, it’s a pleasure to travel on the train. But now it’s different.”

More than 1.5 million people are left homeless after the February 6 earthquake that killed nearly 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Survivors have taken refuge in tents, container homes, hotel resorts and even train cars in the coastal city of Iskenderun in Hatay province, which was badly damaged by the quakes.

Although Sabrieh and Nahir’s apartment on the third floor was lightly damaged, with some cracks visible on the walls, they are afraid to return. Subsequent earthquakes and aftershocks caused further damage to the fragile buildings and authorities warned people that many of them were not safe to enter.

Iskenderun station is open, but two tracks are full of wagons housing hundreds of survivors. Those who arrived for the first time, like Sabrieh and Nahir, found sleeping cabins. Others sleep upright on benches.

Yusuf Karama, 20, and Aysel Özçelik, also 20, were holding hands inside a cart. The couple, who were planning to get married, ran to look for each other after the first shock. Now they may postpone the wedding. “We can’t have a wedding when we have so many dead,” Ozlik said.

Steps and small benches dotted the tracks to help people get to the carriages. Occasionally, the survivors walking across the tracks are warned by a station employee that a train is approaching.

At first, every time a passing train blows its horn, Sabrieh and Nahir are startled. “Now we’re used to it,” said the 57-year-old law firm clerk.

The cramped cabin, about the width of a train window, holds a few essentials and is much warmer on chilly nights than a tent. They spend at least 18 hours a day indoors, leaving only for short walks around the station and lining up for breakfast and dinner served by aid groups.

Sabria said the company scattered since the earthquake has turned their lives upside down, affecting their mental health. Her husband died of COVID-19 in 2020, and she has been struggling to cope with the loss, now exacerbated by the trauma of the earthquake.

“I feel so lonely,” she said. “I miss our social life, drinking coffee with the neighbours.”

Mother and daughter visit their apartment for a few hours each day. They move through it cautiously, but they bathe, wash clothes, and take some food. When they leave, Sabria says a prayer.

“I don’t know if I’ll come back, you’ll still be standing,” she said.

After the local authorities determined that the building had moderate damage and was therefore safe, the couple tried to sleep in the house again. When they felt what they thought was another tremor, Sabria said, they panicked and fled.

“We are very afraid to go home, especially at night.”

She insists that one day she will return to her house and leave its contents untouched. I put the TV on the floor and put pillows around it in case of another shock.

By now, the transience normally associated with train stations has evolved into an oxymoron of the two.

But even in the relative safety of the railcar, anxiety lingers. While a train operator was repairing the tracks one night, the train shook, causing Nehir to gasp and cling to her mother.

“Here, when we shiver, people die,” Sabria said.

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