Turkey8217;s homeless fear disease, bleak future

8220;I was sitting down when they came to rescue me,8221; she said yesterday, flicking back her curly mop of bright red hair. 8220;I said, I8217;m alive.8217; While I was there I didn8217;t think of anything.8221; Doctors at Golcuk polyclinic hospital, who are not sure of her family name, fear that none of her relatives has survived and no one will come to collect her.

Zeynep Ozcan8217;s uncle did come to take her home from anotherbed in the ward yesterday. The seven-year-old, who was also pulled from the rubble on Saturday, was crying as he scooped her up in his arms. She knows that her mother and sister were killed in the earthquake.

But the rescue which brought smiles to the faces of exhausted staff at the hospital, at the end of a week of unmitigated misery, was the freeing of one of their own nurses who had been found under her collapsed home after spending four days lying next to her husband in their bed.

Sema and Ahmed Bulte survived the stifling, subterranean heat by placing stones and bricks on their stomachs to absorb their body temperatures then replacing them when they had warmed. They could barely move and had nothing to drink.

8220;It brings hope that people may still be alive,8221; said Dr Esra Yuksek, a specialist in infectious diseases. 8220;It8217;s terrible. We lost our friends. I knew other nurses who died. But my house is okay and my husband is well.8221;8220;People here are still in shock. They are not crying, they are notsaying anything. They have not yet resumed their lives. Maybe money and jobs are important but at the moment the most important thing is for us just to be alive,8221; Dr Yuksek added.

By yesterday, those who survived the earthquake that devastated the heavily industrialised region around Izmit were slowly beginning to come to terms with problems of building new lives.

In a shift in the mood of the country, the focus has moved from those still under the rubble to those trying to rebuild their lives in the world outside. With 200,000 believed to be homeless, and with the threat of epidemics hanging over the disaster zone, the task is daunting.

Along the coast, however, most of the towns were half deserted. A few survivors camped out in tents or under plastic sheeting. No one will sleep in their homes until they are sure they will not become victims of an aftershock.

Most of the local population have taken to the hills, where there was little damage but there is no water or accommodation. Throughout theday the roads echoed with the high-pitched sounds of ambulances ferrying the sick and injured to hospital.

Several hundred cases of dysentery have been treated in hospitals in Golcuk but so far there has been no confirmation of any typhoid or cholera cases. Workmen have begun spraying pavements and rubbish bins with disinfectant to prevent an epidemic. Many children have succumbed to skin rashes in the heat and absence of washing facilities.

Toll crosses 14,000 mark

ANKARA: Almost a week after the massive earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, the death toll stood at 14,360 dead and 43,873 wounded as of 4 am on Tuesday, the government crisis centre said. The previous toll, released on Monday, was 12,148 dead and 34,448 wounded.

The province of Adapazari, whose capital is the industrial city of Izmit, was the worst hit with 7,231 dead, followed by Sakarya with 3,046, and Yalova with 2,539. Although no official figures have been released, another 35,000 people are feared trapped under therubble, according to estimations in the Turkish media.

A United Nations relief agency in Geneva said on Monday that Turkey had asked for 45,000 body bags.