More than a week after his home was destroyed in a deadly earthquake that rocked southern Turkey, Mohammad Emin’s body is still covered in dust and grime.
Like countless other victims of a catastrophe that killed more than 41,000 in Turkey and Syria, he is still waiting to be washed, plagued by a shortage of clean water that international health bodies say poses a public health risk. .
“We haven’t been able to rinse since the earthquake,” said Emin, a 21-year-old graphic design student, as he carried flu medicine from an open-air stadium clinic serving as a camp for displaced people in the city of Kahramanmaras.
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With much of the region’s sanitation infrastructure damaged or rendered useless by last Monday’s two magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes, Turkish health authorities face a daunting task in trying to ensure that survivors, many of them they homeless, remain disease free.
A clinic doctor, Akin Hacioglu, said between 15 and 30 doctors operated the facility, the only one of its kind in the camp, which treats up to 10,000 people during the day.
Rubble is seen after a deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey on February 15, 2023. Turkey faces a post-earthquake shortage of clean water that can also lead to disease outbreaks. (REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne)
They are offering tetanus shots to residents who request them and distributing hygiene kits with shampoo, deodorant, sanitary napkins and wet wipes, Hacioglu said.
But Emin said there were no showers in or near the camp and the six toilets in the stadium were not enough to meet demand.
Arif Kirici, 42, has been sheltering in the same stadium since he and his mother left their collapsed house on the day of the earthquake.
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He also said he had not been able to shower or, like other camp residents Reuters spoke to, change his clothes.
In the city of Antakya, further south towards the Syrian border, there are more portable toilets than in the first days after the quake, but many residents say more are still needed.
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Batyr Berdyklychev, representative of the World Health Organization in Turkey, said that water scarcity “increases the risk of waterborne diseases and outbreaks of communicable diseases.”
The WHO was working with local authorities to intensify monitoring of waterborne diseases, seasonal influenza and COVID-19 among the displaced, it added.
