If the expected Istanbul earthquake occurs, will the armed forces not come to help?

Human life is a matter too important to be left to political wrangling and political competition.

On the first anniversary of the great destruction, the grieving people of Hatay taught politicians an important lesson by booing both the government and the opposition during the silent march at the bridgehead. They said, “Both the government and the opposition are guilty.”  

The deep sorrow in the eyes of the angry crowd protesting Lütfü Savaş and Fahrettin Koca spoke volumes.

As the night of February 6 and the following 72 hours passed before our eyes like a film strip, it triggered the great trauma that the earthquake-stricken people had experienced once again in their hearts and souls. “We dug through the rubble with our own hands,” said a young man. “For 3 days, the state did not come to help!”

Yet, those 72 hours were crucial. During the most critical 72 hours, known as the golden hours for a person to cling to life, the political will was nowhere to be found. 

I am the closest witness. On the morning of February 6, the friends I could reach were crying on the other end of the phone. Soldiers had not been deployed from the gendarmerie barracks in the center of Antakya!

My friends lived in an apartment across from the Gendarmerie Barracks. The steel door had locked them in. Their neighbors begged for pickaxes and shovels from the barracks, desperate to get them out of their homes. A soldier only managed to climb the garden wall to give them water. He sobbed, saying, “They won't let us out.”

Yet, Hatay was our border city. All the military infrastructure capable of immediate intervention after the earthquake was available. The soldiers remained where they were during those golden hours, for 72 hours. 

The army has helicopters. They could have been assigned to transport the wounded. Many military ships could have come from Mersin to İskenderun, some could have been turned into hospitals, and the wounded could have been treated in the first moments.

For 72 hours, no help came from the naval forces.

The Turkish Armed Forces should have been on the field not only for search and rescue but also for coordination, preventing chaos, ensuring security, and stopping looting and pillaging. They could have easily cleared the roads so that the fastest aid could arrive as quickly as possible.

Soldiers could have embraced the children whose lives were saved and kept them in a safe place, preventing child abductions and missing person cases.

But it did not happen.

The soldier fights the enemy in war and disaster in peace. In natural disasters, the primary responsibility lies with each country's own army. The Turkish army was not on the field during the first 72 hours, when human life is most critical. The political power declared a level 4 disaster and issued an international call for help, but did not send its army to the field!

However, in the August 17 Gölcük earthquake, the army had mobilized within the first half hour, an assessment center was established within the first two hours, and 24 thousand soldiers of the Turkish Armed Forces had saved the lives of many of our people in Gölcük, Yalova, İzmit, Düzce, and Avcılar. The Security and Public Order Cooperation (EMASYA) Protocol, signed between the General Staff and the Ministry of Interior, gave the military the authority to intervene in disasters and social incidents.

The EMASYA Protocol was unfortunately abolished in 2018. The authority for emergency intervention in natural disasters was taken away from the military.

If the army had been deployed to the field in the first 72 hours, there would not have been so many deaths. There would not have been so many missing persons either.

Now all eyes are on the Marmara region.

On Istanbul, the heart of Turkey. 

If the expected Istanbul earthquake occurs, will the Turkish Armed Forces not come to help?

The government, the opposition, and all responsible institutions must first conduct a moral reckoning of those 72 hours.

Because human life is a matter too important to be left to politics.