Earthquake in Turkiye

[LWJ]

Not sure if you all are tracking this, but this earthquake is devastating. My wife and I have traveled to Turkiye a couple times in the last few years and have made friends in the city of Antakya. It was a poorer, dusty, remote city just a few miles from the border of Syria. Now, our friends tell us that 70-75% of the city is destroyed.

Antakya is also known as Antioch in the Bible. It is possible that it is the site of the second Christian church EVER, if that is your thing.

So my heart is breaking for these people. My wife is an avid shooter of street photography and the people of Antakya are easily the most delightful we have ever encountered. A particular memory was a stone bench on a street corner that had a number of retired men sitting and hanging out. My wife asked one if she could take his picture, and he smiled and agreed. Next thing we knew, all of the men wanted their pictures taken. One fellow in particular was insistent that she included his red bicycle in his photo. If you are one to take street shots, you will know that people NEVER want to have their picture taken. And can even get testy about it.

Not exactly sure what I am hoping to accomplish writing this, but I am feeling sad and powerless. The world is a really big place, until it isn't.

[pwd72s]

They we hoping that you'd send copies back. I mailed more than a few 5x7's back to Turkey after my visit to the Southern Coast in 1980.

Yes, a tragic loss of life. A dear friend has an architect firm in Istanbul. She, an MIT grad, has been working with officialdom there to rebuild to more earthquake resistant. She has the pull to get their ear, but getting this done will take a lot of time. Her pull? Her grandfather was the chief engineer of Turkey under AttaTurk.

[gregpark]

7,800 confirmed dead so far including thousands of children. Horrific

[stealthn]

The drone fly-overs are shocking!

[flatbutt]

I saw video of children that survived being pulled from the rubble. You cannot watch something like that and not be moved. I wish we weren't wasting so much money elsewhere. This is going to be a decade in recovery.

[masraum]

I'm surprised this is getting so little attention here.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by stealthn

The drone fly-overs are shocking!

I haven't seen that much about this, haven't watched videos, but have seen same satellite before/after photos. It's sad to see what looks like 10-25 story buildings that have been turned into a pile of rubble. THere are a lot of those. And the sat photos that I was seeing were mostly from 2019, and in some there 4-5 buildings where previously only 1 had stood alone.

[gregpark]

The quake happened at night so those buildings were full of sleeping people

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by LWJ

Not sure if you all are tracking this, but this earthquake is devastating. My wife and I have traveled to Turkiye a couple times in the last few years and have made friends in the city of Antakya. It was a poorer, dusty, remote city just a few miles from the border of Syria. Now, our friends tell us that 70-75% of the city is destroyed.

Antakya is also known as Antioch in the Bible. It is possible that it is the site of the second Christian church EVER, if that is your thing.

So my heart is breaking for these people. My wife is an avid shooter of street photography and the people of Antakya are easily the most delightful we have ever encountered. A particular memory was a stone bench on a street corner that had a number of retired men sitting and hanging out. My wife asked one if she could take his picture, and he smiled and agreed. Next thing we knew, all of the men wanted their pictures taken. One fellow in particular was insistent that she included his red bicycle in his photo. If you are one to take street shots, you will know that people NEVER want to have their picture taken. And can even get testy about it.

Not exactly sure what I am hoping to accomplish writing this, but I am feeling sad and powerless. The world is a really big place, until it isn't.

Pics or it didn’t happen. Same with pwd.

[Scott Douglas]

CNN was reporting 11k dead and headed to past 20k.
Saw a video of a building coming down during an aftershock (I think) with rescue workers scrambling to get out of the way. Collapsed just like the twin towers.

I can only imagine what LA will look like after the big one hits.

[gregpark]

I'm thinking the US will be sending a ton of monetary support to Turkey but how much to Syria? 0?
Politics!

[MBAtarga]

2 pictures off Reddit today that shows the shift in plates from the earthquake.

[gacook]

Wow.

[Hugh R]

Its awful, I've filmed there a few times, Wonderful old architecture, sadly now in ruins, Fantastic history that is unbelievable to most Americans, a 1,000 year old history.

[911 Rod]

Very sad.
Looking at the drone shots and many buildings are so crumbled that it would be pointless looking for survivors.
Very sad.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by 3rd_gear_Ted

Edited.
My friends in Alanya said the shaking lasted one full minute.
Their $300 a month beach house isn't such a good deal right now after leaving Baja MX.

Dude, lets keep this out of PARF!

I think you're selling the folks on this board very, very short with that statement too.

Actually, I think this thread isn't getting as much play because of the non-standard English spelling of Turkey. But I could be wrong.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Its awful, I've filmed there a few times, Wonderful old architecture, sadly now in ruins, Fantastic history that is unbelievable to most Americans, a 1,000 year old history.

What's amazing is how much of the old architecture had lasted for so long.

I know that in some cases, the folks back in the day knew how to build for certain natural phenomenon like earthquakes, or in some cases, maybe just got lucky. I think that often a lot of the more modern stuff doesn't fare as well. I'm guessing that time finally caught up with the old architecture though. Not everything is built out of Roman self healing concrete.

And you hear about really old Japanese temples that are built out of wood. What you don't necessarily hear about when hearing/reading about a 500 year old temple is the fact that it may have been rebuilt a time or two during that time such that very little of the original structure remains other than the design. Yes, the new one is made of the same materials and in exactly the same way as the old one, but the wood isn't necessarily 500 years old.

[VINMAN]

We sent three of our FEMA USAR teams over.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

We sent three of our FEMA USAR teams over.

Is the SAR search and rescue?
If so, what's the "U"?

[gregpark]

Urban