Six months after record-breaking earthquakes devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria, the historic city of Antakya is a rolling landscape of cracked high-rises, tent cities and piles of debris.
The freezing temperatures of the earthquake’s immediate aftermath have been replaced by dust and 95-degree-Fahrenheit days.
Despite the Turkish government’s promise to rebuild affected areas within a year, nearly everyone in the city continues to live in tents and converted shipping containers — set up in front of gardens, olive orchards and open fields.
Donated tents, designed for the winter cold, soak up the heat of the sun. But skin infections, borne by flies, are common. Organized settlements of container homes are set up on hot concrete, surrounded by barbed wire, and are reliant on regular shipments of drinking water.
Of the more than 50,000 deaths reported in Turkey, half occurred in Hatay, the country’s southernmost province. Grief pervades almost every corner of the province but, slowly, the residents who remain are carving out a life amid the rubble.
Here is a photo essay by The World’s Durrie Bouscaren.
Translations by Duygu Yeral.
Some homes and buildings remain standing in central Antakya, Turkey, awaiting demolition.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldMustafa Güler, a tinsmith in Antakya’s covered bazaar in Turkey, lost 57 members of his family in the earthquakes.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldA motorcyclist rides past a demolished building in the beach town of Samandağ. A converted shipping container serves as an insurance office.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldFrom their terrace, a family watches a building next door get torn down. Asbestos wasn’t banned in Turkey until 2010, and environmentalists fear the dust created by earthquake debris is toxic.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldA child walks through a tent camp in an olive orchard in Antakya, Turkey.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldA container camp in Antakya, Turkey.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldAn informal tent camp set up in an olive orchard in Antakya. The Turkish government has prioritized its own citizens for container housing, and most residents of informal tent camps are Syrian refugees.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldSyrian children outside their tent in Antakya, Turkey. Many Syrian families who lost their homes in the earthquake are living in tents.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldA tent hospital set up on Samandağ beach, not far from a large dump site for earthquake debris.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldMany shops have reopened for business in converted shipping containers, like this liquor store.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldSemih and Serap Bozaydi reopened their tailoring shop in a market of small, prefabricated buildings set up by the government. The shopkeepers will be charged rent starting in October, and the Bozaydi’s aren’t sure they’ll stay. “It feels like a temporary life,” Semih said.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldMişel Atik, director of the Samandağ Environmental Protection and Tourism Association, stands outside the ruins of the historic house that he had painstakingly restored. The morning of Feb. 6, Atik had randomly awoken just a few minutes before the earthquake, and escaped through a window just before his home collapsed.Durrie Bouscaren/The WorldEnvironmentalists help hatching sea turtles reach the surface on Samandağ Beach, just a few meters from a large dump site for earthquake debris.Durrie Bouscaren/The World