ERCIS—The earthquake that ravaged eastern Turkey has turned the stadium in the city of Ercis, which bore the brunt of the fury, from a sporting venue into a giant field hospital.
Bones are set on benches, wounds are cleaned under basketball hoops, blood transfusions are given on the game floor.
“Our role is to give first aid, to stabilise the patients before sending them to hospitals in neighbouring towns by ambulance or by helicopter,” says Niyazi Celik, a doctor who is running the makeshift hospital in this eastern city.
“We started working an hour after the quake struck and we have treated 500 wounded,” he says.
A stretcher arrives with a feeble old man who has been pulled from the rubble, the latest victim of the quake that has killed at least 272 people, at least 169 of them in Ercis.
Quickly the medical team cuts his clothes, sets him up to an IV and gives him oxygen.
“He should make it, but you never know — he spent 24 hours under the debris without eating or drinking, an organ can always give out,” says Nurettin Yilmaz, a member of the emergency crew that came here from Bolu in the west of the country.
A total of 970 buildings collapsed as a result of the 7.2-magnitude quake and aftershocks, and some 1,200 rescue officials were frantically scrambling to pull out any survivors before the start of the second night since the quake, with temperatures expected to plunge to two degrees Celsius (36 Fahrenheit) and snow forecast for Wednesday.
“In one hour, it’s the seventh miracle that we have saved, including a one-year-old baby,” says one of the medical workers. “You can’t imagine how good it feels.
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Help quickly flooded into the region following the quake.
Some 2,400 search and rescue teams from 45 cities and more than 200 ambulances have rushed to the region, according to the government.
The military said six battalions were also involved in search and rescue efforts.
Six helicopters, including four helicopter ambulances, as well as C-130 military cargo planes were dispatched to the area carrying tents, food and medicine.
The Turkish Red Crescent sent some 7,500 tents, more than 22,000 blankets, almost 4,000 heaters, 1,000 body bags and 1,500 units of blood to the region.
The hundreds of rescue workers who converged on Ercis from throughout Turkey have lived through several miracles on Monday — a 16-year-old girl Hilal was pulled smiling from the wreckage of her house, two children were plucked alive from a collapsed building.
But, with each hour that passes the chances of more miracles diminishes.
“Tomorrow, it will no doubt be the end of hope,” says a medical worker at the stadium field hospital.