Helmets and flashlights on their foreheads, the rescuers sink under a collapsed house in Antakya. In view: Asghar and Nouma, two bulls stuck under the rubble.
Hundreds of cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, pampered by the population of this large city devastated by the earthquake of February 6, in southern Turkey, found themselves trapped in the rubble like these two cattle.
And no more than humans, there was no question of abandoning them.
Like 75,000 buildings totally devastated by this earthquake which killed 44,000 people in Turkey and Syria, the house of Nazli Yenocak collapsed.
The sturdy 47-year-old still considers herself lucky because her family is unhurt, even though there are six of them now camping in a tent in the middle of the garden.
On the other hand, it is time to rescue Asghar and Nouma, who are usually noisy. “Hearing them so quiet makes me cry,” she said.
For 11 days, Nazli fed them through a ventilator. Then she contacted the rescuers of Haytap, a Turkish association for the protection of animals which, after hours of effort and with the help of German and Austrian volunteers, finally released her bulls on Friday.
Haytap thus delivered 900 cats, dogs, rabbits, cows or even birds from the ruins of Antakya, often called by grieving owners, unable to recover their animals in their destroyed homes.
In the volunteer camp where the structure is installed, the rescued animals are celebrated like rock stars, filmed by a myriad of mobile phones and applauded.
Five breeding chow-chow dogs, little balls of white fur, are first cared for, then taken to a shelter outside the disaster area. Just like a blue-eyed husky, or several litters of puppies whose high-pitched yelps brighten the mood.
Under Haytap’s vet tent, a litter of bottle-fed kittens sleep in an incubator. The NGO also provides food points for animals throughout the city.
Because on the mountains of rubble that now encumber Antakya, they are often the only signs of life fourteen days after the earthquake: a dog dozing near a smashed sofa, a cat washing in a devastated kitchen.
In the old town, a man rescued after two days under the rubble takes care of a black kitten, discovered in front of a atomized building: “His owner fled. He stayed here. So we feed him.”
A few streets further on, a large dog squirms and barks on the first floor of a blown up house. “He might come down, but he stays out of loyalty to his masters,” said Efe Subasi, 27, a Haytap volunteer brought to the scene by a neighbor.
Finding the living is now a miracle. So “by saving (animal) lives, we manage to feel a little bit better”, launches this director.
Some beautiful stories put balm in the heart of a population in a state of shock. A cat from Gaziantep baptized “Enkaz” (Rubble in Turkish), by his rescuer and who never let go of him, has thus become a hero of social networks.
Caught under rubble, dogs or cats manage to sneak towards food or a fridge, which allows them to last longer, observes Mehti Fidan, head of the veterinary department of the city of Istanbul, who treated 300 animals of Antakya.
“But when they come to us, cats have dilated pupils. Dogs refuse to be approached. They are traumatized, like humans,” he notes.
Sometimes their presence annoys research teams: their thermal scanners can’t differentiate their body temperature from that of humans.
“After hours of effort, we came across a cat which, once cleared, ran away without even a meow for us”, says a foreign rescuer disconcerted.
However, nine days after the disaster, a baby from Antakya was discovered in its rock-covered crib by a neighbor who was looking for his cat, CNN Türk reported on Thursday.
Erol Donmezer, met in front of Haytap’s tent, is on the other hand in despair at not having found his own. “My son has just had both his legs amputated,” he says. After the operation, “he said to me: Dad, all I want is for you to bring my cat back to me.”
19/02/2023 11:03:56 — Antakya (Turquie) (AFP) © 2023 AFP