One year after February 6, we are still asking!

It was the seventh day of the earthquake when her father, Murat Gövce, reached his 10-year-old daughter, Eylül. She was under the rubble, but there wasn't a single scratch on her beautiful face. She had her mother's phone in her hand. She had died!

It was determined that she had called 112 repeatedly with that phone. She had sent voice messages and photos to her father, who was in Istanbul at the time of the earthquake. In her voice message, she was saying, “Dad, look, I think I’m going to die too; there was an earthquake, we are in the rubble, I found my mother’s phone but I can’t reach them, could you send an ambulance here urgently?”

She had tried to call for help, dialed numbers, but because the phone had no signal, she had struggled to hear a familiar voice until the battery ran out.

The house they lived in had become a grave for Eylül, her 6-year-old sister Ece, and their mother. It is estimated that they lost their lives not by being injured in the earthquake, but by freezing or dehydration. Just like thousands of souls who cried out from under the rubble, “Save us!” For those who heard the voices of their loved ones at the site of the wreckage and experienced a hell worse than death, and helplessness, nothing would ever be the same again.

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It was not the earthquake, but bad, corrupt governance and a system of theft that took lives. On the anniversary of February 6, after so much loss, pain, and tears, we have neither been able to see those responsible nor have we been able to learn lessons from that great catastrophe.

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For instance, we still do not know why the Turkish Armed Forces did not intervene in the cities that turned into rubble after the earthquake, or why the soldiers were kept waiting in their barracks. Those soldiers had quickly taken to the field during the 1999 Gölcük earthquake, saved thousands of lives, treated the wounded, and provided shelter and food aid to earthquake victims.

Who gave the order to ‘stay in the barracks,’ and how? Or why did the military arrive in the region late?

We do not know…

Thousands of our people who survived the destruction caused by the earthquake died of cold while waiting for help under the rubble. Why the miners were taken to the region late, and who is responsible for this delay, is still a secret!

Those trapped under the rubble were using the internet to ask for help via social media. The internet was cut off after a while. We still do not know why it was cut off or why social media was throttled.

A year has passed! The then-Minister of Transport, Adil Karaismailoğlu, while answering questions on Mehmet Akif Ersoy's program on Habertürk TV, defended the restrictions placed on internet communication under the management of the Ministry of Transport during the earthquake by saying, "it was necessary."

We do not know why it was ‘necessary’!

We also learned, at the cost of lives, that the communication infrastructure had no alternatives and that this weakness led to deaths! So, what has been done in the time that has passed? If a similar earthquake occurs, are the mobile stations of GSM operators and the alternative communication systems of the Ministry of Transport ready? We do not know…

How many of our people did we lose in the earthquake? We do not know…

How many of our children went missing even though they were rescued alive? We do not know…

Families who were able to survive the great catastrophe are searching for their relatives and children. There are children who were pulled out of the rubble alive but have gone missing. One year later, the opposition brings the investigation of missing children to the agenda of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, and the AKP-MHP rejects it! Why?! We do not know…

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From AFAD to the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay)… Incompetent administrators and institutions where cronies are put on the payroll collapsed at the moment of the earthquake.

The government, which ‘pardoned’ illegal construction, unhealthy housing, and decayed urbanization with zoning amnesties, remained under the rubble of the February 6 earthquake.

The pain of thousands of our citizens whose homes turned into graves where they were buried alive is in our hearts… Our scientists are providing the answer to the question, ‘Could it have been prevented?’… The earthquake could not have been prevented, but the destruction and death might not have happened in this disaster…

There was no one to hear the screams of ‘Is there anyone who can hear my voice?’

I ask those in the Palace;

‘What are you doing for our citizens who are forced to live in dilapidated housing and are waiting to be rescued while they are still alive?’