Daily Times

Tuba Yolcu is desperate for news of her missing aunt and scours a sports hall where victims of a powerful earthquake that hit her hometown in Turkey lie in body bags. “We hear (the authorities) will no longer keep the bodies waiting after a certain period of time, they say they will take them and bury them,” she said. “God willing we will find her,” Yolcu said, with worry etched on her face. Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor struck Kahramanmaras in the country’s southeast, unleashing catastrophe in the region and Syria, killing at least 28,000 people. Anguished families flock to sports halls, hospital morgues or cemeteries in the severely hit city — where bodies are piling up — in a bid to find their missing relatives. “Every unidentified body will eventually be returned to their family,” a prosecutor said, trying to soothe the families. “Don’t worry, blood samples are taken from each and every missing body,” he assured. Families — who cannot reach their loved ones during the rescue work — check one by one bodies either in bags or wrapped in blankets. “We show the faces to their immediate relatives,” a crime scene investigator in a hazmat suit told AFP at a large grave outside the city.