Helpful, helpless in tragedy's wake
By Ahu Ozyurt Posted Jan 1 2000
It all looked surreal. When my cameraman and I entered the state hospital in Golcuk, just a couple of hours after the earthquake struck on Aug. 17, there were bodies everywhere. Silent ones, injured ones, crying ones, desperate ones. And doctors and nurses were crying, too. A nurse checked a young man who was taken out from the rubble for a pulse — in vain. She looked up to me and said, “give us a hand to carry this one to the corridor. There is no more space in the morgue.”
This became a common practice for reporters on the scene. For the first 48 hours after the quake, we all felt the dilemma of telling the story versus helping the rescue operations. The magnitude of the destruction was almost beyond our description and our comprehension. There was very little information and help coming because either most of the officials involved had lost relatives or they were helping their families and neighbors in rescue and recovery operations.
There were miraculous rescue operations. On the third day, we were driving on the main street in Golcuk. Underneath the debris of a five-story building, a young man was found buried under blocks of concrete and steel. He walked out with a couple of bruises. Spontaneously, he walked to the camera and said, “I am alright; tell my mother I am fine.” The men who had been working for hours to rescue him had come from a remote town. They said, “First we rescued our nieces and nephews, now this young man. We have to go and find more.” Stories like these mobilized people to come and help the rescue.
Unfortunately, all we could report in those first three days was how desperate people were and how incapable the state was in its response. There we were, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world, even able to broadcast across the Atlantic. But we were not able to lift the rubble, put out the fires or bring more help within hours. All we could do was to turn our powerful lights to the rubble every night, so that people could continue to search and rescue around the clock.
We saw life and death and everything in between. But above all, we saw great dignity, courage and heroism. It was the story of a lifetime.