Many in the Syrian border region town of Samandag listened to their relatives and friends slowly die under the rubble as they waited for rescuers who came too late.
And those who survived the February 6 disaster have been living on the streets, freezing when the winter temperatures plunge after dark.
Hasan Irmak saw five family members -- including his six-year-old daughter Belinda -- buried under his flattened house.
"She was alive for two days," the 57-year-old said of his daughter.
"I was talking to her in the ruins. Then she lost all her energy. On the third day, she was dead. Help arrived on the fourth."
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pushed back hard against accusations that his government floundered in its response to Turkey's deadliest natural disaster of modern times.
The 7.8-magnitude tremor and its aftershocks have claimed the lives of more than 36,000 people in southeastern Turkey and nearly 3,700 in Syria.
- Survival -
Erdogan has admitted to some initial "shortcomings" that he blamed on stormy weather and quake-damaged airports and roads.
But he has also argued that he has now mobilised the full force of the state to help millions of victims who were left either homeless or displaced.
Samandag's much bigger neighbour Antakya -- an ancient city of nearly 500,000 people that was almost completely destroyed -- is starting to receive its first shipments of government aid.
But the people of 40,000-strong Samandag have been fending for themselves and accepting handouts from private campaign drives.
Hasan survived, but since the first pre-dawn tremor he feels he is not really living.
"We have no water, no toilets, no medicine, no doctors. I have been wearing the same clothes for eleven days," he said.
He buried his relatives without anyone's help. Some of the survivors have been living in a small metal cabin that Hasan built himself.
"I have 25 liras left ($1.35) for my family," Hasan said. "The government said they would help us financially. But nothing came."
- 'Third-class citizen' -
Semir Ayranci's house in Samandag survived seemingly unscathed.
But the government is barring people across quake-stricken regions from moving back into surviving buildings until proper assessments are made.
This has forced Ayranci and his 23 relatives to move into a tent on an adjacent plot of land. They eat whatever well-wishers ferry in by truck.
Ayranci bitterly compares himself to a "third-class citizen".
"All these distributions are private initiatives. We have been abandoned by the state," he said.
Yet this sense of solitude has prompted many to pull together and start helping each other out any way they can.
One baker used an appeal on social media to secure huge supplies of flour. He is now working hard to provide free bread.
A steamroller was levelling ground before installing mobile homes and tents provided by a generous donor.
And four women were peeling potatoes for a neighbourhood soup kitchen.
"There is no state. We are all volunteers," potato peeler Seal Yuves said.
"Eleven days have already passed," said the 44-year-old. "It's terrible."
Turkey rescues two 11 days after quake
Kahramanmaras, Turkey (AFP) Feb 16, 2023 -
Turkish rescuers on Thursday pulled a 17-year-girl and a woman in her 20s from the rubble of last week's devastating earthquake, as hopes fade of finding more survivors.
Aleyna Olmez, 17, was rescued 248 hours after the 7.8-magnitude quake flattened entire cities, killing nearly 40,000 people across southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.
"She looked to be in good health. She opened and closed her eyes," coal miner Ali Akdogan, who took part in the rescue effort, told AFP in Kahramanmaras, a city near the quake's epicentre.
"We have been working here in this building for a week now... We came here with the hope of hearing sounds," he said. "We are happy whenever we find a living thing -- even a cat."
The girl's uncle tearfully hugged the rescuers one by one, saying "We will never forget you."
NTV television later reported that Neslihan Kilic, in her 20s, was rescued 258 hours after the first tremor in the same city.
CNN Turk said more than 250 people had lost their lives in the complex of high-rises where Kilic was found alive.
Officials and medics said 36,187 people had died in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria from the February 6 earthquake and its aftershocks, bringing the confirmed total to 39,875.
Turkey has suspended rescue operation in some regions, and the government in war-torn Syria has done the same in areas under its control.
'No toilets': Hygiene nightmare in Turkey's quake ruins
Antakya, Turkey (AFP) Feb 15, 2023 -
Sedef's relief at surviving Turkey's deadly earthquake is quickly giving way to fears she could succumb to diseases that threaten to take hold across shattered regions now devoid of basics including toilets.
Last week's tragedy killed nearly 40,000 people across swathes of southeast Turkey and northwest Syria, becoming the area's deadliest natural disaster in centuries.
Erasing entire towns, it displaced millions of people and left millions more who stayed behind living in rubble, huddling around bonfires in the freezing weather and facing shortages of medicine.
Few buildings have survived unscathed, and amenities such as toilets and showers all but vanished when the first tremor struck before dawn on February 6.
"There are no toilets," said Husne Duz, a 53-year-old woman from Kahramanmaras, a city near the initial quake's epicentre.
"People are urinating near the tents. We need toilets. We need to be able to take a shower. We need washing machines for clothes."
Sedef, an 18-year-old in Antakya -- an ancient city of nearly 500,000 people, entire blocks of which were razed to the ground -- said the lack of sanitation was becoming desperate.
"Maybe we didn't die from the earthquake, but we will certainly die from diseases," she told AFP, declining to give her family name.
- 'Our biggest issue' -
Portable cabin lavatories have begun to spring up across the quake zone, but demand far outstrips supply.
"That is our biggest issue," said Nurhan Turunc, 42, who was picking up medicine for relatives at a temporary pharmacy set up by volunteers in Antakya.
"Early morning, we manage, but (the toilets) are really bad, they are in a disastrous state. There is no water."
One set of 15 portable blue and white WCs on a bridge in central Antakya was completely overwhelmed by use, with excrement overflowing onto the pavement.
Sedef said she had been forced to use the filthy facilities because those in the surviving school where she had sought refuge were worse.
A plea written on one portable lavatory in the city implored visitors to "please use as a human", to encourage proper lavatory etiquette.
Sedat Akozcan, who heads the region's chamber of pharmacists, said that where "hygiene conditions are bad, of course there will be contagious diseases".
- 'A lot of diseases' -
"But from the medicine requests coming up until now, that risk of contagious diseases has not materialised."
Operating out of a car park of a destroyed public health building, a group of young volunteers have been dispensing free treatment and advice to Antakya's survivors.
Their goal is to keep the health and sanitation situation manageable until more government help and international humanitarian relief arrives.
There are more than a dozen similar temporary pharmacy setups across the affected region, with some 30 pharmacists on site at each one.
The service said it had seen more than 1,000 patients a day in Antakya who had been unable to visit their usual dispensary since last week's earthquake.
"A lot of people here are elderly, who didn't want to leave," said Doctor Onur Karahanci of the Turkish Medical Association.
"They have a lot of diseases... especially hypertension and psychiatric diseases, diabetes -- that is very widespread," he said alongside his organisation's mini field clinic in a riverside park dotted with displaced people.
- 'Very cold' -
Akozcan, the pharmacists' representative, warned that conditions in Antakya, where temperatures drop to 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) at night, were also causing issues for infants.
"The winter is very cold and so there has started to be a lot of upper respiratory infections -- especially with small children," he said.
At the impromptu pharmacy, a child collected a box of pills and was called back by a pharmacist to be given an additional tube of cream and pointers on its use.
Medics have warned about the risks of skin conditions such as scabies spreading because of the poor sanitary conditions.
Hundreds of pharmacists across Turkey have donated boxes of pills, bandages and other medical essentials.
There is also high demand for masks to help combat the pervasive clouds of dust thrown up by the collapse of hundreds of buildings.
They also shield wearers from the smell of decaying bodies as well as asbestos, a flame-resistant material once widely used in construction but now seen as highly dangerous because its fibres can cause cancer when inhaled.
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