Most placing is the sense of abandonment — of numerous lives all of the sudden interrupted — as survivors fled town with no matter they may carry, leaving passports within the drawer, household photos on the wall and laundry hanging on the road.

“Antakya bitti,” the lament goes. “Antakya is completed.”

The Turks say Kurtulus Road was the first in historical past to be illuminated at night time. It remained alive in any respect hours in trendy instances, a buying space dotted with vintage shops, eating places and houses.

On one finish of the road is Habib-i Neccar, considered one of Anatolia’s oldest mosques, now in ruins. On the opposite finish is St. Pierre Church, already a whole lot of years previous when Christian crusaders oversaw an enlargement within the early-Twelfth century. A stairway was broken within the quakes, however the stone face of the church was unhurt.

On the bottom exterior a boutique resort whose rooms have been named after Hittite kings and Greek goddesses are remnants of earlier lives: photocopied notes on gland tumors, a battered jean jacket, a container of child meals.

All was eerily quiet till Mustafa Ugur burst out of a residential constructing holding a cardboard field.

“Take a look at this, it’s lovely,” he stated, pulling a pigeon from the field. “I got here right here to assist the previous uncle and take his pigeons someplace protected.”

Ugur appeared up on the roof the place an previous man, probably not an uncle however a good friend, stood trying down. The pigeon keeper fears his constructing should fall, the younger man defined.

“So we determined to evacuate the birds.”

Even the buildings that stay upright in Antakya are crisscrossed with cracks that snake by bedrooms and kitchens. Curtains sway within the breeze by damaged home windows and holes within the wall. Excessive-rises that seem unscathed stand ft away from others which have collapsed into hills of powder and twisted steel.

Typically, it was the fragile objects that survived. A set of sauces and vinegars tumbled out of a fridge. Expired Georgian passports and a set of frilly hair clips have been safely ensconced in a drawer. A lidless jar, nonetheless intact, spilled out a superb inexperienced powder, a handwritten word caught to it: “Nane,” Turkish for mint.

On some streets, troopers stood watch to forestall looting. They huddled round makeshift fires, shivering within the chilly. The empty flats peered down at them.

Colourful garments have been strewn on road corners throughout town, coated in a movie of mud. That they had been donated to earthquake victims, however few residents have been left to say them. Most people nonetheless right here have been from search and rescue groups.

Veli and Yesim Bagi have been the exception. Their sofa appeared misplaced, their clear, purposefully organized belongings sat starkly in opposition to the rubble. They waited on the lengthy, quiet street, their music retailer behind them, dealing with a once-pristine park.

“This place was very lovely,” stated Veli, a music teacher.

“The neighborhood was a brand new neighborhood, most buildings have been new. Every little thing was going to be good, every part was presupposed to be lovely.”

He gestured towards the light greenery throughout the best way. “Children used to play on this park. My college students’ mother and father used to have a break on this park after I was instructing classes.”

He opened his piano and stroked the keys. “The fingerprints of my children are nonetheless on the ivories,” he stated, tears falling. “Now we can have new college students, we’ll educate different children.”

They too have been leaving town, to Adana, the place his mother and father had a home ready for them. However first, Veli stated, he was going to take his spouse on a vacation.