It was around 1:30am when I came home that warm and humid summer night. I had to pack my clothes and things into the suitcase since I was planning to go on holiday the next morning. When I was finished packing, it was almost 3:00am and I went to bed. Soon after, my room, which was on the second floor of a three-floor apartment, started shaking. At first, it wasn’t very strong and I didn’t panic. I thought it would stop soon and I didn’t move in my bed. However it got stronger and stronger and I started thinking that this is getting serious. During a moment that I thought it was slowing down, I tried to get out of my bed and as soon as I tried it, the shaking got stronger and I ended up sticking to my bed again. I realized that the quake would throw me to the sidewalls of my room, if I would try to stand up. At that moment I heard the voice of my dad, calling for me to wake up and get out, but he couldn’t do anything else than stand in front of my room, hanging on to the sides of the door. The tremor was still going on. In between I heard the cry and prayers of my mom and the horrifying noises that came from the things that were falling down and broke, like the dishes, pots and pans in the kitchen and the little porcelain statues and vases that used to decorate our saloon. Finally it stopped, but it seemed so long .

    When it was finished, we shut down the utility lines of the apartment and went outside of the building. The outdoors was just like another planet, but not the earth. There was dust everywhere and one could only hardly see 4-5 yards in front. At that time I thought that something really strange had happened to the world. I just couldn’t think of that thousands of buildings collapsed down during the earthquake produced the dust that was everywhere. Our apartment didn’t collapse even though it was shaken badly. I thought other buildings would be as good. Unfortunately they weren’t.

    People started concentrating to larger open areas and tried to stay away from buildings. Approximately an hour after the quake, the dust had gone down, but for me the reality still didn’t show up until I went out of the site where I used to live and took a look at other neighborhoods. As soon as I walked out of the site entrance and turned left I saw the first house that was collapsed down and blocked the road. When I looked to the right hand side, I saw several houses ruined down to the side of the boulevard. Now the reality was so clear to me.

    We heard from the security personnel of the refinery, where my father was working, that there is a fire in the refinery, however there was not much information about it. Then they called all the personnel to the refinery to help responding the fire. My father went. I listened to the short-wave radio to learn about the details of the fire until the sun came down. The fire was big.

    When the sun came up, it proved how big the disaster was. There were collapsed houses everywhere. And I went to help people who were trying to take out their families from under the debris of collapsed houses. There were no organized search and rescue teams around. We were basically using our hands and some basic tools to remove big walls or to make holes into them.
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E-mail the author for the rest of the article: Sarp Yeletaysi, sarp@gwu.edu