Village in southern Türkiye suffers less damage despite sitting on fault line

By Muhammed Enes Calli

KAHRAMANMARAS, Türkiye (AA) - The village of Tevekkelli is located on the fault line, in Türkiye's southern Kahramanmaras province, but suffered less destruction from the twin earthquakes of Feb. 6.

Drone footage captured by Anadolu showed how cracks slice through fields and tracks in the village.

The village sits on the fault line in southern Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the Feb. 6 earthquakes.

Ruptures around the village now stretch for kilometers.

But villagers were lucky as their village had relatively suffered less damage, with 37 out of 300 houses crumbling to the ground, where only one person was killed.

Some three-story or two-story buildings collapsed or were heavily damaged.

- Villagers now live in tents, expect going back to normal life

Living in London, UK for 35 years, Haci Palit was from this village as he came to Türkiye to visit his family in the center of Kahramanmaras two days before the earthquakes.

His brother and his brother’s wife have been found dead under the rubble of the building in Kahramanmaras.

The 55-year-old’s three-story summer house in Tevekkelli was completely destroyed.

He is now waiting in front of his building to save his belongings, including a tractor in the rubble of the garage.

"The road of the village collapsed and the field turned into a hill after the earthquakes. We are now living in a tent provided by AFAD (Türkiye’s disaster management agency)."

The village relatively has fewer residents in winter as the villagers mostly prefer to live there in summer.

Veli Ciftci's house has been partly damaged and he is expecting help from the government to rebuild the house.

"The villagers are now the victims of the disasters. The weather was very cold on the day of the earthquake. On the third day, we were given electricity. We will slowly return to normal life,” the 59-year-old said.

"I arrived in the village the day after the earthquake. I didn't dream that my house would be destroyed, but it happened."

Another villager, 54-year-old Durdu Koyunlu was also in the village on the day of the earthquakes.

"Village houses were destroyed shortly after the earthquake started. It was raining and the electricity was cut off."

"The fault line passes within 100 meters (328 feet) of my house. There have been many earthquakes recently, we thought it was a small earthquake, but it was not."

According to the latest official figures, at least 42,300 people have died in the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes on Feb. 6 that were centered in Türkiye's southern Kahramanmaras province and struck 10 other provinces – Hatay, Gaziantep, Malatya, Adiyaman, Adana, Diyarbakir, Kilis, Osmaniye, Sanliurfa, and Elazig.