‘All of them gone’: A Miamian feels dread, helplessness amid reports on relatives in Turkey
At a table outside a Brickell Starbucks, Oğuzhan Gönüllü, 32, recalled his childhood playing with his cousins in the now-destroyed home of his uncle and aunt along the Mediterranean coast in Turkey. After the earthquake hit overnight on Feb. 6, he struggled to sleep, drink, eat or think of anything else except his homeland. While he spoke, he barely sipped his coffee. Three of Gönüllü’s family members were known dead. Six others, four of them children, were still unaccounted for under shattered buildings in the city of Antakya, in the southern province of Hatay, he said. The chances of them being found alive were slim, he and relatives who did survive feared. A week after the quake, other family members were planning to go to Antakya to see if it was possible to assist in rescuing any of their loved ones, some of whom were believed to be 65 feet deep within the ruins of two 18-story luxury apartment buildings that collapsed into each other.
