After being hit by a second magnitude 5.6 earthquake on November 9, the city of Van is now turning into a ghost city. Snow keeps falling while thousands of people are forced to migrate from Van. People who stayed in the region but were still without houses and tents were forced to seek shelter into damaged houses last night. People at the Tent City are also struggling for their life under the snow, suffering from difficulties with heating systems.

Search and rescue teams continue meanwhile in the wreckage of Bayram Hotel which was one of the oldest and known locations in the city center.

The people migrating represent the biggest visible failure of the handling of the emergency by the government.

Indeed it is a shame to see the pictures of stranded people in Van while the situation degraded into a blame game with no one stepping forward to claim responsibility for structural assessment reports on two hotels that collapsed when the second earthquake in two weeks struck the region.