"I was fearless in the past, but now a single noise is enough to freak me out," the 57-year-old former weightlifter told AFP.
"Everything reminds me of the earthquake -- even the sound of a plane," he said.
Last month's devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake flattened entire cities, killing more than 50,000 people across southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.
In Kahramanmaras, a Turkish city near the quake's epicentre, survivors remain haunted by the trauma one month on.
"It's been a month now but for me, it feels like yesterday," said Adem Serin as he watched heavy machines remove the piles of rubble in the complex of high-rises where hundreds lost their lives.
"We couldn't get over the shock. I was caught by the quake on the 11th floor of a high-rise building," said Serin, whose wife is five months pregnant.
"I can still hear the screams of people crying for help on every floor. This pain will never go away."
Efforts to remove the ubiquitous rubble now dominate the city of 1.1 million people.
Workers who arrived from all over Turkey spray water on the debris and rubble-laden trucks trundle along the road waiting to dump the waste into a landfill outside the city.
- Clouds of dust -
Columns of dust emerging from the clean-up cover the horizon, carried by the wind and generating grey clouds seen from kilometres away, blurring the visibility in the region surrounded by mountains.
"200 to 250 tons of debris is removed here daily, we are irrigating so that it will not disturb the environment and not create dust," said Eren Genc, of the forestry directorate in the eastern Sivas province.
He said: "We didn't spot any bodies but yesterday there was a strong smell," directing a hose at the concrete slabs. "I think it will be done here in 10 days."
Operators sometimes come across precious objects while working to remove the rubble.
Levent Topal, from the waterworks authority in the Black Sea region, said his team spotted a safe deposit box in the rubble full of dollars, euros, gold and documents.
"We never touch them, we deliver it to the police who find the owner," he said.
A 54-year-old man took a big risk and climbed to the seventh floor of his building to retrieve items -- despite the danger and the more than 11,000 aftershocks that followed the earthquake.
"I know it's risky," admitted Veli Akgoz as he loaded a door and curtain rods onto the roof of his car.
His entire family of 13 people, who used to live in five different flats, will now squeeze into a village house.
- 'No choice' -
Officials say nearly two million people left homeless by the quake are now housed in tents, container homes, guesthouses or dorms in and beyond the region -- but this is far from meeting the needs of many others.
Some people spend the night in damaged houses because of a lack of tents, despite the authorities' warnings.
"We are scared but we have no other choice," said Solmaz Tugacar, desperately looking for a tent with her neighbours in the city's main square, where quake survivors line up to get food or tea from aid trucks.
Some residents are mobilised at the neighbourhood level.
In one part of Kahramanmaras offering a panoramic view of the city, a dozen tents are housed in the garden of a local authority's two-storey offices.
Locals cover the ground of the tents with carpets they pulled from a historic mosque whose minaret fell from the quake.
Ibrahim Yayla, a 31-year-old electricity technician, is one of the survivors sheltered in those tents with his two children and wife.
"We are okay now as the weather is nice, but what will happen if it rains?," he asked, holding his two-month-old baby.
Hairdresser Arif Guckiran took the matter into his own hands in this neighbourhood when the local mukhtar, or head man, ran away after the quake.
He stockpiled nappies and dry food including beans and lentils in several rooms of the building to deliver to those in need, but highlighted the dire shortage of cooking equipment.
"The other day a coal-loaded truck arrived down the hill. Before I could even go down to pick them, locals took several bags of them away," he said.
Key points one month after Turkey earthquake
Kahramanmaras, Turkey (AFP) March 5, 2023 -
A massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked huge swathes of Turkey and parts of Syria on February 6, killing more than 50,000 people in both countries.
The World Health Organization said it was the "worst natural disaster" in the European region for a century.
One month on, Turkey is facing the daunting task of rebuilding flattened cities, with tens of thousands buried and many survivors barely subsisting in tents or containers.
- Loss -
The country's death toll from the quake has risen to 45,968, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Saturday, with 4,267 of the dead Syrian refugees who fled the civil war in their country. Thousands more in Syria have died.
The earthquake struck 11 Turkish provinces at 4:17am local time as people slept in homes not built to withstand powerful tremors.
Turkish officials said 214,000 buildings collapsed following the quake, many of them in Hatay and Kahramanmaras.
Teams of workers are still toiling to clear the rubble that now dominates quake-hit cities.
About 14 million people have been affected by the disaster -- one sixth of the country's population.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said to date 3.3 million people had been forced to leave the quake zone. More than 1.4 million have been resettled in tents and nearly 46,000 in container cities, while the rest have been settled in dormitories and guesthouses, according to official figures.
- Frustration -
There has been mounting frustration at the government over its handling of the disaster. Erdogan has blamed severe winter conditions that covered major roads in ice and snow, damaged roads and inoperable airports.
In some provinces, including Adiyaman, anger at the state remains strong. Survivors told AFP they had been left to save loved ones trapped under the rubble with their bare hands because there were no rescue teams, soldiers or police for days after the quake.
Some survivors recounted witnessing the death of their relatives because they weren't able to pull them from the rubble due to a lack of equipment needed to drill through slabs of concrete.
Erdogan conceded "shortcomings" and asked for "forgiveness" after criticism of his government's response.
"It's not possible to be ready for a disaster like this", he said during a visit to the quake region.
Opposition media and politicians blamed government institutions including the disaster agency for its slow response.
The Red Crescent Society and its president, Kerem Kinik, were chided for selling rather than donating tents for those made homeless by the quake.
So far, no government officials have claimed responsibility for the response and none have resigned.
Contractors have been blamed for following lax standards that allowed so many buildings to crumble like pancakes.
Authorities have detained more than 200 people including construction contractors as part of a widening probe. Turkish media showed some contractors held at Istanbul airport while trying to flee the country.
- Cost -
Already suffering from skyrocketing inflation and a weakening currency, Turkey must now absorb the economic damage of the earthquake, estimated at more than $34 billion by the World Bank.
The amount is equivalent to four percent of the country's 2021 GDP, and does not account for the costs of reconstruction that could be "twice" as large, the bank said.
With elections just a few months away, Erdogan has promised to provide new homes to the millions affected within a year.
The Turkish leader has relied on the country's construction sector over his two decades in power, boasting of a modernisation drive that has built roads, bridges and tunnels.
The post-quake rebuilding effort could yield economic rewards, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
"The boost to output from reconstruction activities may largely offset the negative impact of the disruption to economic activity," the bank said.
-Political consequences -
Legislative and presidential elections will go ahead as planned on May 14 despite the earthquake, Erdogan said this week.
The president last month declared a three-month state of emergency across the quake region, fuelling rumours that the vote could be postponed. It's still unclear how voting security will be restored and displaced people will be able to cast a vote.
The elections appear to be the most crucial for Erdogan, in power first as prime minister and then president since 2003.
The earthquake forced the delay of an announcement by the country's opposition alliance of a unity candidate, now expected on Monday. The most likely candidate is Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition CHP party.
But his nomination has been strongly opposed by the nationalist party leader in the alliance.
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