Malik Dalyan was in a seven-story apartment building in the Armutlu district of Defne, in Hatay, when the 7.7-magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Maraş occurred on 6 February. The house collapsed in a matter of seconds and Dalyan, like tens of thousands of other people, waited under the rubble for two days for state aid, but none came.

Dalyan told ANF that he was staying on the first floor with his family and was unable to sleep that night because he was unwell. "In the first seconds of the earthquake, my wife and son left the building before me. Since my other son stayed in the apartment, I went back to get him. When I opened the door, the electricity went out and the building collapsed. My first reflex was to crouch down and put my hands on my head. I didn't feel the ceiling collapse. It was dark. I had my phone in my pocket and immediately turned on the light. My feet got stuck. I also had severe pain in my chest. I started lifting the stones from my feet. One of my feet was bleeding and swollen. One of my son's shoes was left where I lay in the rubble. I pulled the shoe over my foot to stop the bleeding, but my foot was badly swollen. I looked around with the light and saw that the pillars had fallen on me. A piece had come loose from the pillar and I could see out through a small hole. It was still dark outside. I started waiting. In the morning, light came out of the little hole and I called for help when I heard someone passing by. Upstairs were a man and a woman who were also trapped like me. It was very cold, especially at night. We didn't die in the earthquake, but I kept thinking we were going to freeze to death because no help came."

Rescued by workers with pickaxes and shovels

Dalyan said that he couldn't call anyone by phone because there was no network. In order not to freeze to death in the cold, he constantly rubbed his feet. On the first day, although some people heard his voice, they just told him to be patient because they didn't have any tools to help him. Dalyan said: "They kept telling me, 'Be patient, they will come.' But hours passed without anyone coming. Then my brother and other relatives came. They brought soldiers and volunteers with them. They were workers and after two days they rescued me with a pickaxe and a shovel because the construction machines weren't there yet. I asked for tools and started smashing the stones from the inside."

"Have we been abandoned because we are Alevis?"

Dalyan underlined that the government has failed the earthquake victims. “No help has come and anyone who claims otherwise is lying. They wanted us to die. The government is guilty, they didn't care. If no help comes for 24 hours, we'll say okay, but where was the state for the second day and for days after that? Why does it let people die? Is it because this is Armutlu district? Is it because it is an Alevi neighbourhood? We've been waiting for days for our bodies to be taken out. Where are the state institutions? If not on a bad day, when would the state and the government be there for people?"