The powerful twin earthquakes that struck southeastern Türkiye on Feb. 6 caused massive destruction in the southeastern region with some areas close to the fault lines razed to the ground, including a village in Kahramanmaraş's Pazarcık district, one of the epicenters of the earthquakes.
Nearly all of the single-story houses in the village of Ordekdede are gone.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), the mukhtar of Ordekdede, Kemal Güven, said there were 140 houses in the village before the disaster and now there are no structurally sound homes left. Guven considers himself lucky, he was in Gaziantep at the time of the earthquakes.
He said the villagers are trying to rebuild the village, which is the largest populated area in the region closest to the epicenter of the earthquake.
"There are only two or three houses left standing, while all the others were destroyed. The earthquake left 34 people dead and 25 others injured," he informed.
In another village of Gaziantep, only 10 of the 200 houses remained standing after the powerful tremors of the Feb. 6 earthquakes.
Mehmet Gökkaya, a resident of the Başpınar neighborhood of Gaziantep's Nurdağı district, who was stuck under the rubble, said: "We waited for death. It is a miracle that we are alive."
The above-mentioned neighborhood was one of the areas that suffered the most damage in the earthquake because of the fault line passing under it. Some of the village residents lost their relatives. A large number of animals perished in the village – which relies on farming and livestock to survive.
In the village, a fissure measuring around 5 meters (around 16 feet) wide appeared during the earthquake. The tear in the earth revealed that the fault line progressed diagonally; one of the two houses closest to the fissure was not damaged, and the other one next to it was ripped in half. Villagers and the mukhtar worked quickly to repair the burst water pipes in the aftermath.
At least 41,156 people were killed and 105,505 injured by the two strong earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye on Feb. 6, officials said Monday in the latest figures from the natural disaster.
Over 6,000 aftershocks have occurred since, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) noted, with the country's southeastern province of Hatay jolted by another pair of earthquakes Monday evening, leaving six dead.