Kahramanmaraş, Malatya, Gaziantep, Diyarbakır, Adıyaman, Adana, Osmaniye, Şanlıurfa, Hatay, İskenderun, Kilis, Elbistan, are bleeding and weeping…Turkey is bleeding and weeping. Aleppo, Damascus, Syria, Iraq are bleeding and weeping. Mesopotamia region as far as Egypt is bleeding and weeping…
The earthquake caught people in their sleep at 04:17 am on February 6.
A 7.7 magnitude quake… Then… hundreds of after effects… Then at noon time at 13.24 hrs. an other earthquake. 7.6 magnitude…
In societies and countries where people have faith in science and knowledge, earthquakes are predictable. They are foreseen; you can anticipate and forewarn the local residents, you can be prepared and take precautions in advance. You can not prevent an earthquake but you can prevent the damages caused by it. (Look at Japan) That fault line which crosses Turkey from east to west, did not descend from the sky all of a sudden at midnight. It was known. It was expected. We had experienced it before! Authorities didn’t learn anything from previous experience.
Please do not talk to us about “fate!” This huge disaster is not “fate” ; it is because our societies are very short minded and we have learned no lesson from our previous experiences… It is because we have done wrong to nature. Or should we say that it is the price of disregarding merit, science, knowledge; ignoring human life and human dignity?
Destroyed or most damaged buildings are the new structures. As long as profit is concerned no matter whether it is public or private building for those who steal the material. Hospitals, airports, police schools, new luxury buildings, roads … They have all vanished. Hundreds of thousands are still under the debris in this cold minus degree cold.
As the number of casualty increases every passing hour, we as PEN Türkiye Centre sincerely wish patience and strength to those who lost their relatives, and healing to the injured.
Dear friends, thank you for your solidarity messages. It means a lot to us.
ANOUNCEMENT FROM PEN TÜRKİYE
The earthquake caught people in their sleep at 04:17 am on February 6.
A 7.7 magnitude quake… Then… hundreds of after effects… Then at noon time at 13.24 hrs. an other earthquake. 7.6 magnitude…
In societies and countries where people have faith in science and knowledge, earthquakes are predictable. They are foreseen; you can anticipate and forewarn the local residents, you can be prepared and take precautions in advance. You can not prevent an earthquake but you can prevent the damages caused by it. (Look at Japan) That fault line which crosses Turkey from east to west, did not descend from the sky all of a sudden at midnight. It was known. It was expected. We had experienced it before! Authorities didn’t learn anything from previous experience.
Please do not talk to us about “fate!” This huge disaster is not “fate” ; it is because our societies are very short minded and we have learned no lesson from our previous experiences… It is because we have done wrong to nature. Or should we say that it is the price of disregarding merit, science, knowledge; ignoring human life and human dignity?
Destroyed or most damaged buildings are the new structures. As long as profit is concerned no matter whether it is public or private building for those who steal the material. Hospitals, airports, police schools, new luxury buildings, roads … They have all vanished. Hundreds of thousands are still under the debris in this cold minus degree cold.
As the number of casualty increases every passing hour, we as PEN Türkiye Centre sincerely wish patience and strength to those who lost their relatives, and healing to the injured.
Dear friends, thank you for your solidarity messages. It means a lot to us.
PEN TÜRKİYE CENTRE
6 February 2023.