The ancient Turkish city that ceased to exist after the earthquakes

By Sarah Dadouch and Salwan Georges

ANTAKYA has become a city of ghosts.

A thriving modern metropolis of nearly 400,000 people – and a cradle of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman history – belongs now to the birds and earth-moving machines.

The two massive earthquakes on February 6 spread destruction across southern Türkiye, but the devastation in Antakya stands out. The view at night shows a once-vibrant city that has gone dark.

Most striking is the sense of abandonment – of countless lives suddenly interrupted – as survivors fled the city with whatever they could carry, leaving passports in the drawer, family pictures on the wall and laundry hanging on the line.

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

HISTORY IN RUINS

The Turks say Kurtulus Street was the first in history to be illuminated at night. It remained alive at all hours in modern times, a shopping area dotted with antique stores, restaurants and homes.

On one end of the street is Habib-i Neccar, one of Anatolia’s oldest mosques, now in ruins. On the other end is St. Pierre Church, already hundreds of years old when Christian crusaders oversaw an expansion in the early 12th century. A stairway was damaged in the quakes, but the stone face of the church was unharmed.

On the ground outside a boutique hotel whose rooms were named after Hittite kings and Greek goddesses are remnants of previous lives: photocopied notes on gland tumours, a battered jean jacket, a container of baby food.

All was eerily quiet until Mustafa Ugur burst out of a residential building holding a cardboard box.

“Look at this, it’s beautiful,” he said, pulling a pigeon from the box. “I came here to help the old uncle and take his pigeons somewhere safe.”

Ugur looked up at the roof where an old man, not really an uncle but a friend, stood looking down. The pigeon keeper fears his building may still fall, the young man explained.

“So we decided to evacuate the birds.”

SIGNS OF LIFE

Even the buildings that remain upright in Antakya are criss-crossed with cracks that snake through bedrooms and kitchens. Curtains sway in the breeze through broken windows and holes in the wall. High-rises that appear unscathed stand metres away from others that have collapsed into hills of powder and twisted metal.

Sometimes, it was the delicate items that survived. A collection of sauces and vinegars tumbled out of a refrigerator. Expired Greek passports and a collection of frilly hair clips were safely ensconced in a drawer. A lidless jar, still intact, spilled out a fine green powder, a handwritten note stuck to it: “Nane”, Turkish for mint.

On some streets, soldiers stood watch to prevent looting. They huddled around makeshift fires, shivering in the cold. The empty apartments peered down at them.

ONLY MEMORIES REMAIN

Colourful clothes were strewn on street corners across the city, covered in a film of dust. They had been donated to earthquake victims, but few residents were left to claim them. Most of the people still here were from search and rescue teams.

Veli and Yesim Bagi were the exception. Their couch looked out of place, their clean, purposefully arranged belongings sat starkly against the rubble. They waited on the long, quiet road, their music store behind them, facing a once-pristine park.

“This place was very beautiful,” said Veli, a music instructor.

“The neighbourhood was a new neighbourhood, most buildings were new. Everything was going to be perfect, everything was supposed to be beautiful.”

He gestured towards the faded greenery across the way. “Kids used to play in this park. My students’ parents used to have a break in this park when I was teaching lessons.”

He opened his piano and stroked the keys. “The fingerprints of my kids are still on the ivories,” he said, tears falling. “Now we will have new students, we will teach other kids.”

They too were leaving the city, to Adana, where his parents had a house waiting for them. But first, Veli said, he was going to take his wife on a holiday.

– THE WASHINGTON POST