Earthquake in İzmir: the sea rose in Sığacık, a person in a wheelchair lost his life while being underwater

After the 6.6 magnitude earthquake in Izmir, the sea rose in Sığacık. The place where shops, restaurants and stalls were located in the castle and Teos street was flooded.

Speaking to the BBC in Turkish, Sığacık District Chief Yaşar Keleş reported that a person in a wheelchair was killed by being submerged as the sea rose:

“In our neighborhood, it is considered that our aunt grew up in his hand. I was in a wheelchair. When the earthquake struck, they left the house in a wheelchair. At that moment the sea came, everyone panicked, their wheelchair tipped over. We found him later, but we couldn’t save him. My two sons rescued him from the water. After we rescued him, he was breathing for a while, we called the ambulance but he couldn’t come, how could the ambulance come, the ambulance is in the sea everywhere. He died in our arms. We stayed. The water took almost half an hour to get in and out. There was other water, but it did not die. Water is still being drawn, it’s coming back.

Nilgün Aklar, who lives in Sığacık at a distance of 300 meters from the sea, said that the frames from the pots fell into the house and went out into the garden:

“We have prepared a small bag. We are sitting in the garden. The sea was overflowing on the beach. The interior of the castle is flooded, the water has risen two streets from ours. We cannot leave the garden much, we are ready to go if necessary. Now the sea has been redrawn, there are young people walking by. We are worried that if the earthquake happens again, I will not say tsunami, but the sea will overflow again. We stand near our car, prepare a bag “The car is at the bottom of the garden. We took our medicines, our water, our masks. He went into the water.”

Aklar said the electricity was also cut off.

“We can’t go in and turn on the TV anyway, there are external chargers for phones, we plug them in there, but we don’t know how long we’ll be outside, go in, or spend the night outside.

Another person we contacted in Sığacık said that the interior of the castle and the marina area were flooded after the earthquake, and their access to the exterior became difficult due to the lack of electricity.

Serdar Cerit, who lives in Sığacık and speaks to the BBC in Turkish, says that many homes and workplaces have been damaged and that citizens are waiting for the morning ‘to heal their wounds’:

“The old stone buildings in Sığacık are already half a meter below the streets. As such, all the houses and shops were flooded as soon as the water came in. Boutiques, crafts, food, everything …

“The water washed up the large closets inside the tents hundreds of meters away. I saw yachts on land and cars in the sea. The water washed the yacht in the marina and knocked the cars on land into the sea.

“The seawater entered 150 meters from the shore and took half an hour to fully withdraw. The crews came immediately to open the underground gutters, but unfortunately there was a problem in the infrastructure, the water was not draining quickly. Sığacık en a historical region and contains many sites, this For this reason, there are areas where it is not possible to excavate for infrastructure works.

“The people of the region only have income from tourism and agriculture. This year they have already had great economic difficulties due to the pandemic, they only had a two-month summer season. Local shops and traditional markets didn’t open for long. People were already financially weak, how is winter winter. While I was thinking we will spend it, this came out. “

Cerit says that the local population was not warned of the tsunami that could occur immediately after the earthquake, even though there was enough time.

“We went to high places immediately after the earthquake, but not everyone was aware of this risk. No official information was given about it. The public may not know that there is a risk of a tsunami, but the public had to be warned about it. danger with sirens.

“The tsunami occurred half an hour after the earthquake, there was time to warn. Tonight, the Kaleiçi location near the coast was evacuated due to the risk of a new tsunami. Everyone living in Kaleiçi, which has 184 houses, 150 of which are workplaces, they left their homes and left. “