Locals in the town of Güvenç in quake-hit southeastern Hatay province were forced to abandon their heavily damaged village and moved to a tent city after the recent catastrophic disaster wreaked havoc in the neighborhood, leaving a ghost town behind.
While most of the houses were destroyed in the earthquake, consequential rockslides destroyed the remaining ones. The damage compelled the locals to shift somewhere safe, turning the once-lively neighborhood into a "ghost village."
The 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes that occurred in the Pazarcık and Elbistan districts of Kahramanmaraş caused massive destruction in the center and other districts of Hatay.
"There is no one left in our village," shared Güvenç village's mukhtar Ali Gedik.
"Our village comprises 300 houses. We were informed by the authorities earlier that we face a series of landslides but it is hard to move permanently and find settlement somewhere else," Gedik lamented.
"I would say, this was not an earthquake, it's the end of the world," Mehmet Karakaya, a survivor, said, expressing his fear of what he witnessed during the catastrophe.
"They banned construction in our village some 20 years ago, but we couldn't move anywhere due to a lack of resources," he added.
The entire village migrated miles from their homeland and settled in the tent city established kilometers away from their homeland.
While the construction of temporary container houses in the region continues for the residents who temporarily live in the tent city, the residents of the neighborhood want a permanent home for themselves where they can live with no fear of landslides.
