Chapter 2 - Consequences of the Disaster

All Channels in the country are only talking about the earthquake shook more than 10 cities and destroyed more than ten thousand buildings and tens of thousands of other structures. The cold weather making search and rescue work difficult. There is people under rubbles of the razed buildings, alive or dead waiting under freezing cold, hungry, thirsty in dark and can't move at all.

Their families and friends was trying to reach them, trying to help even if it is futile efforts, Whole country sending money and necessary supplies to the site. Turkish Government and Foreign countries were trying to save people under remains of destroyed buildings but most of the roads were mess it was hard to even reach the worst parts of cities. And search and rescue was sensitive work needs caution. This made work even slower and more grueling for both for people needed rescue and people want to save lives. Death toll: 20.000+ Number of injured: 70.000+ on 6th day of the disaster"

Mehmet was not the only one heard the sound of the vehicles around. There was 2 more voices around him one from toddler from before,

"So he is still alive... Kids are surprisingly tough."

More than 80 hours passed since the earthquake happened even if you did not include the time he was fainted. Mehmet was on limits of his patience already with this dark and small place. He was in pain from injuries and everything pressing him from every side of him even breathing was getting harder and harder.

When he heard surprisingly lively toddler he got a bit of his mental strength and hope back.

"And here I thought I saw hell on The Earth as Special Forces Soldier." Mehmet said while laughing

"I am taking courage from a toddler... hahaha..."

Other sound was another S.O.S. signal made by someone above. Mehmet did not even know the neighbor trying to survive there. Seconds, minutes, hours passed with no care for lives of people trying to survive. Some felt like puking for hours because ıf smell of dead, shit and piss. Some pressed their ears trying to not hear wails and screams of dying people and some closed their eyes trying to not see scary hallucinations created because of long time under darkness, cold while feeling thirsty and starving.

Search and rescue teams trying to dig deep in the remains of building that was 7 storey building before and now seemed like 2 storey building of rubble.

Heavy machines having hard time to reach places like this, so there was a lot of people working with vigor to save lives. Almost all Search and Rescue teams from Government, soldiers, Volunteers like miners from city, Search and rescue teams from foreign countries etc. People from all over the world come to help to save lives. They used sensitive listening devices and snake cams to find survivors and worked hard to dig them out when they found.

SAR teams already managed dig in half of razed building in 10 hours but there were a lot more corpses and survivors the more they dig. They celebrated for every survivor they rescued and cried silently for every corpse they dug out. They continued to work with tears in their eyes sadness in their hearts. Even after 10 hours of work no one was complained about how tired they are. They were working in turns as effective as they can. Days of work never tired them as long as they find 1 survivor that day.

Ayşe was from one of such teams. Her job was use devices to listen and look with thermal cameras and find survivors under rubble to rescue. She caught quite obvious S.O.S. signal from far deep in corner of building. It was opposite side of her team working and they found another survivor there as well and They did not manage to dig him/her out yet. She located the nearest place to dig survivor out and reported but there was no one in her team free to start. Everyone working to save other people in different part of ruins. Every minute is important almost 100 hours since the earthquake already there is almost no survivor that is not in critical condition. Even surviving is a miracle at this point. Ayşe saw so many of mangled , dehydrated, frozen corpses of dead these days. They were already late come here because of sheer scale of the disaster. She looked around for someone free and ran around of the ruins.

There was a Korean Soldier from Search and Rescue Team of South Korea patrolling around ruins he was in charge of security of the team. He saw Ayşe looking around working people with sad and in hurry expression. He went to her and asked her in English,

"What is the matter , why are you panicking like that?"

"Is there a problem with the building your team working? "

Ayşe understood what he is saying but she could not speak English well, she tried to tell him that "she located a survivor but they are too short-handed to start right away." With clumsy english and body language. When Korean Soldier. Kim Jin-Soo. understood her dilemma, He started to run right way without saying anything. Ayşe was startled to see him running so suddenly, then felt thankful for his help.

Kim Jin-Soo came back with his team that was resting and they started to work right away.

Mehmet continued S.O.S. signal about 20 minutes and heard digging, cutting sounds and stopped hitting table with his keys. He was on his limits already but he was hopeful about his rescue.

"Now I will not die before paying my debt to him..."

He started shouting to other survivors,

"Rescue is almost here make some noise if you can hear me!"

Toddler and his father started make noise, but other survivor he heard from above was quite.

The toddler and his father had larger space compared to Mehmet almost 100 hours of starving and drinking dirty water of boiler room to survive. Normally almost anyone would go crazy in that freezing wet darkness. Father of toddler completely devoted himself to pacify toddler played stupid games singed stupid songs for his kid. He never let toddler cry as long as he is not sleeping. Hugged his kid so they would not freeze there, it was not that cold because they were deep underground but everywhere was wet. They managed to survive anyway.

Mehmet was happy they both survived no matter which one is died and other survived, survivor would suffer with trauma all of his life. He knew similar suffering, it was even hard to imagine if that died comrade was his father or his son.

Meanwhile rescue work was progressing with vigor Tens of thousands died and there was a lot of people %95 dead under the rubble but they need to reach them to be sure. They found survivors after long time digging for the victims, they hoped and prayed for a miracle to sprinkle hope alive relatives of survivors waiting anxiously for good news and to people working to save lives.

Mehmet heard almost right in front of him someone was talking in foreign language.

"거의 다 왔습니다. 조심하세요" ( We are almost there. Be careful)

Mehmet felt it was familiar and nostalgic.

"Where did I heard this language? I feel like I heard it when I was quite young like more then 20 years before."

Mehmet remembered ... years ago, his war veteran grand father who is a bit crazy telling him exaggerated sounding war stories from 1950's.

"We fought like wild beasts broke their chains, locals and generals of allied nations could not stop praises."

"When we go there and fought together with United Nations Army. Most of the time we fought 1 to 10 or 1 to 7 but we still won almost every time. We lost a lot of comrades there of course we were sad but every time we heard locals saying [도와주셔서 감사합니다. 절대 잊지 않겠습니다. ] with happy expression we never regretted going there to help. By the way girls there were way more beautiful there, do not tell your grandmother... hahaha..."

His grandfather mimicked Korean surprisingly well, Mehmet was shocked.

"Did you learn Korean language there from locals? What is the meaning of that?"

"No of course not I am not that smart to learn such a thing while we are in war there was no such time it is just that we heard this pretty often. I learned it meant 'Thanks for your help, we will never forget it.' From one of my comrades. It made us quite proud and happy so some of us tried to remember it some even wrote it down."

"Maybe they really did not forget after all these years our grandfathers favor came back saved us . If they are still remembering such old thing they should be quite honorable."

He was not sure about it at all but Mehmet loved to think that way. The skewed table in front of him broken down and light came inside.

"We reached him he is in a critical condition call paramedics right now."

"There is two more survivors deep down." Mehmet said in English then mimicked his grandfather and said;

"도와주셔서 감사합니다. 절대 잊지 않겠습니다."

Korean guy that taking him out slowly laughed brightly and carried him to ambulance.