Epress.am News from Armenia
First impressions after arriving in Van are more positive than negative. In my opinion, the media has exaggerated some situations in Van following the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey’s eastern region over a week ago, reports the Epress.am correspondent on the scene who arrived in Van on Saturday.
“There is much help arriving in the disaster zone, but there are serious issues in its delivery. Tents are arriving, as are food and clothes, but there is need for more professional distribution of these goods. There are many complaints. There are few points of distribution and the lines are very long.
“Rescue teams are already starting to clean up the area, but there is not much hope that there are people alive beneath the rubble.
“A serious problem over the past two days has been the cold weather. It is 2º Celsius during the day and 0º at night. Some of the tents that have been delivered are summer tents and they won’t be able to keep people warm in these cold weather conditions.
“Though someone who just arrived in Van might get the impression that life is returning to normal, that’s not quite the case. People are afraid: they don’t want to return to their buildings so they continue to live in tents. Many have left the city. At night, there are no lights on in the streets and in buildings — Van has become a ghost town.
“After several conversations [with local residents] I can say that people in Van don’t trust the government anymore. They don’t even believe the local Kurdish municipal authorities [note: Van is mostly populated by Kurds].
“They are waiting for confirmation and a hopeful declaration from the state that it will assume the task of quickly rebuilding the city.
“‘We went back 15 years,’ the owner of our hotel told me. This is an assessment heard often in today’s Van,” reports the Epress.am correspondent in Van.
Photo: Reuters