On Feb. 6, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake rocked southeast Turkey and Syria, but the effects could be felt thousands of miles to the west in Reno, Nevada.
The earthquake’s death toll is now over 47,000 according to the Associated Press, 1l.5 million have been left homeless and the damage has affected families of relatives here in Reno.
The Turkish community here is small, but they still came together and decided to do something and fundraise what they could to send to their home country.
“We all came together, we had a couple of meetings,” said Mehmet Tosun, a professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Reno. “And then we started, actually, the students started the fundraising campaign. This was featured in social media, in a few places including LinkedIn. But I don’t know if it reached a lot of people or how it spread. We tried our best but what can you do, right?”
Speaking about how the fundraising was put together or where they would send the money, Tosun said help is desperately needed.
“We were also talking about as opposed to sending cash, maybe sending goods. So we thought about doing that kind of thing, but we read in the news … that the logistics was really hard, especially at the beginning of the earthquake,” he said. “So there was a question about sending commodity [but] we decided to do it through fundraising instead.”
The earthquake itself and the countless aftershocks have been a neverending nightmare who call that region home. According to the United Nations Development Programme, the amount of rubble generated by this disaster is between 116 and 210 million tons.
Turkish authorities say about 164,000 buildings have been destroyed or need to be demolished. To quantify that, the estimated area that it would take up is equivalent to about 19 square miles at a height of nine feet.
Dilek Uz, an assistant professor of economics at UNR, who was born and raised in Adana, Turkey, one of the 10 provinces most affected by the earthquake.
She was able to give some insight from a different perspective.
“What deepened the tragedy is that thousands of all ages, including pregnant women, died in the subsequent hours and days due to hypothermia, dehydration or blood loss while being stuck under tons of rubbles,” she said. “Many people who were able to escape were later on in utter despair while trying to get their loved ones out. The official casualty number is around 40 thousand, but I have every reason to believe that it is a massive understatement of the actual figure, given that many buildings (or rather what have remained of them) are still untouched while thousands of bodies are stuck under them.
“There is every chance that they will never get a proper burial or even a grave. It will take months if not years to have a better grasp of the actual casualty figure as there need to be ‘missing’ ordinances issued for those people before they can be officially declared dead after waiting a certain amount of time,” she added. “As a side note, many are concerned that this can potentially facilitate voting fraud in the upcoming election.”
When asked if this disaster could potentially affect the coming presidential election on June 18, Tosun responded:
“That’s a big question, it’s hard to answer. I mean normally you will think that these major events and this big reaction from the people losing their family members, losing their home and their other possessions. They will go after the politicians, right? This won’t be obviously good news for the government but politics is a different animal.”
When asked about the situation in Turkey before the earthquake, Uz said that the Turkish people were already struggling.
“This earthquake came at the worst possible time,” she said. “Turkish people, through no fault of their own, will carry the burden of this disaster mentally, physically, emotionally and financially for many generations to come. This is, by far, the worst thing I have experienced in my entire life.”
Vigil planned, fundraiser ongoing
A vigil is scheduled for Sunday, March 5, 2023 at 5 pm at downtown Reno’s City Plaza.
The fundraiser from the Northern Nevada Turkish Cultural Association is ongoing, and they have raised close to $18,000 of their $500,000 goal.
The fundraising campaign’s page notes that, “all donations to this fund will support TPF’s Kahramanmaras Earthquake Relief Fund and recovery efforts. Initially, the fund helps first responders meet survivors’ immediate needs for food, fuel, clean water, medicine, and shelter. As needs emerge, we will support longer-term recovery efforts run by local, vetted partner organizations in the impacted area(s).”
