The mirror the earthquake holds up to our face

As the terrifying dimensions of the earthquake we are living through as the disaster of the century emerge with each passing day, it becomes clear that it has exceeded a century, and perhaps deserves to be remembered as the disaster of several centuries. Orhan Tatar, AFAD's Director General for Earthquake Risk and Mitigation, announcing the analysis report prepared by AFAD on the earthquake disaster that struck 10 of our provinces in Turkey with all their cities, and at least 4 provinces in Syria as well, stated that the energy released by the two earthquakes that occurred back to back on 6 February was equal to the energy of 500 atomic bombs.

Professor Shinji of the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University, in a statement to Japan's Asahi Shimbun regarding the Turkey earthquake, emphasized that the earthquake's "amount of energy" was "more than ten times that of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake." Shinji said, "in addition to the magnitude of the earthquake, the proximity of the epicenter to the surface also caused great damage."

Although experts say that the greatest earthquake of the age could enter the top five in the history of the world's earthquakes, this is both because of the intensity of the earthquake and because of the destruction it has caused. And it is plain as day that the destruction is not only a result of the intensity of the earthquake. The existence of buildings that did not collapse at all, or even suffered no damage from an earthquake of the same intensity, although some of the buildings standing side by side were leveled to the ground, also reveals the existence of the social and moral corrosion we are facing.

Without doubt the earthquake does not merely shake the ground and bring down buildings built on rotten foundations and with deficient materials. It shakes everything, jolts everything, brings down everything, and offers people an opportunity to rebuild better. It shakes emotions, it shakes lives and perceptions, it shakes human relations, it shakes the stance of the state. After this shaking, it corrects some, but it can also make some worse.

One feature of our beautiful homeland, which our Lord has granted us as a country, is that it lies on earthquake faults, and this reality reminds us constantly, almost regularly. It reminds by shaking, it warns, and it gives a strong lesson about building housing accordingly. Those who take a lesson from it and those who do not become plain as day.

The intensity, power and gravity of the earthquake are evident. This earthquake would probably have caused a certain amount of destruction even if you had taken all your precautions, but of course not this much. Earthquakes expose in plain view the subtle thefts committed in secret, from the people, the state, the nation, the customer.

But how many thieves there turn out to be in the country. The earthquake must be holding up, in a very painful way, a mirror to us, to our social morality too. All these negligences, immoralities, thefts come from people who lead respectable lives among us. O my people, did you think there would be no price for making cheating in weights and measures, and wrongdoing, so commonplace?

Of course these will be called to account, an accounting will be made, and I hope they will be an occasion for renewing, and if possible repairing, our perceptions of ourselves. We will also question where and how we earned the right to see ourselves as superior to other nations and to swagger so much, and how we could swagger so much although we had not earned that right. We will come to ourselves, God willing. May our Lord not destroy us because of the debauched among us.

Thank God, there are also our epic goodnesses, our good ones, that have emerged together with the earthquake. For days we have been seeing masses of people competing, in a desperate effort, to rush to the help of others, putting forth their lives, their property, their hearts. These too are our nation. How can those debauched ones find shelter among this nation? Perhaps this will be the question we should ask and focus on from now on.

The disaster of several centuries also brings out, with all its heroism and exceptionality, the effort and organization of several centuries of struggle against disaster.

According to the data announced yesterday by Vice President Fuat Oktay, 31 thousand 254 search-and-rescue personnel are working in the field. Countless construction machines have been dispatched to the field in a short time and search, rescue and debris-removal work is being carried out. There are 80 thousand of our citizens in hospitals. Around 1 million 50 thousand of our citizens are being sheltered in our temporary shelter centers. Approximately 190 thousand citizens have been evacuated from the disaster zone. Under AFAD's coordination a total of 159 thousand 146 personnel are working in the field. In addition, volunteers of civil society organizations, again as hundreds of thousands of people, are trying to reach everywhere in the field.

The Turkish Armed Forces are actually serving in the earthquake zone with 25 thousand 67 personnel. So far, with 707 sorties by 63 aircraft, 9 thousand 780 expert personnel and 625 tons of materials have been delivered to their targets.

35 governors, 133 civil administration officers, 19 senior AFAD managers and 68 provincial directors have been assigned to the disaster regions. Together with volunteers, the total number of personnel in the field is 218 thousand 417.

We of course do not expect this picture to open the eyes of those who from morning to night go on about AFAD's organization and the disruptions that naturally may occur, over social media.

WHO WANTED TO DO WHAT, AND AFAD OBSTRUCTED IT?

They want AFAD to step aside and not obstruct the aid organizations, so that whoever sees it will think that they, at their keyboards, have a more perfect, more active organization than AFAD. They are giving tactics from behind their desks for the response to an earthquake that has affected 15 million people at once.

The truth is, everyone who wants to help is already in the field; AFAD is not obstructing anyone. It only coordinates; everyone who wants to work sincerely finds a place either within this organization, within its knowledge, or entirely independently.

The anger toward AFAD is not the anger of those in the field but the anger of those at their computers. We can of course understand this. It is the concern of grabbing plunder from the earthquake rubble. We will say have some conscience, and let their conscience be theirs. But they must not be allowed to steal goods belonging to others from the earthquake rubble either.