Thousands of people today silently walked the streets of the main cities that suffered from the wave of earthquakes that on 6 February 2023 devastated nearly a dozen provinces in southeastern Turkey, causing more than 53,000 deaths and leaving very sad memories that for their families and friends are more vivid than ever.
In Kahramanmaraş, the epicentre of the earthquakes, hundreds of people gathered by a clock that stopped at 4:17 a.m., the exact time when the first quake struck, and observed a minute’s silence in memory of the victims, singing the national anthem afterwards, many of them unable to hold back their tears.
In Antakya/Hatay (Antioch), another of the hardest hit cities, a religious ceremony was organised with representatives of the three great Abrahamic religions (Jews, Christians and Muslims) and afterwards those attending the ‘silent march’ organised in the city threw red carnations into the Asi river as a tribute to the dead, according to Turkish media reports.
It was at 4:17 a.m. on 6 February 2023 when an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale with its epicentre in Kahramanmaraş shook the entire southeastern region of Anatolia; while rescue teams and volunteers were working through the rubble to try to rescue the victims of the first tremor, a second quake measuring 7.6 struck at 13:24 on the same day. The disaster was of biblical magnitude: considered the worst earthquake in Turkey’s history, it affected 11 provinces and caused 53,537 deaths, leaving millions homeless; but it also unleashed an unprecedented wave of solidarity, with humanitarian aid and rescue teams arriving from all over the world.
The so-called ‘disaster of the century’ in Turkey also left 120,000 injured and an unprecedented level of destruction, with damage valued at $104 billion, equivalent to more than 10% of the country’s GDP, and some 40,000 buildings destroyed. Two years on and despite massive reconstruction efforts in the region – more than 200,000 houses were built for those affected in 2024 alone – the wounds of the 2023 earthquakes are still evident in cities such as Antakya, where almost half of the buildings collapsed or were severely damaged and an estimated 650,000 people who lost their homes in those earthquakes are still living in temporary shelters.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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