Doctors grapple with their ‘unbelievable’ experiences during mission to Turkey and Syria in wake of earthquakes
CHICAGO — Just hours after he learned about the devastating Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Tarek Kabbany was on social media around 3 a.m. and saw a picture of his younger sister’s apartment building in southern Turkey destroyed.
By 6 a.m., he received word that his sister and her three kids were missing. At 11 a.m., the Chicago-based doctor was on a flight to Turkey.
“I went right away,” Kabbany said. “I got there Tuesday night, and you know, the minute you enter the city, you can see it’s like a city of death. Really, it’s unbelievable. You will not imagine you can see something like this in your whole life.”
Kabbany, his brother-in-law and other friends and relatives spent weeks in Hatay searching for his sister, two nephews and niece. At first, they were hopeful they would find them still alive underneath all of the rubble, just as others had been found amid the aftermath of the earthquakes and aftershocks. But, Kabbany said, “every day, our hopes got less and less.”
Kabbany’s story is one of many of people who still are struggling to cope and survive after the earthquakes and aftershocks that left tens of thousands dead and millions affected when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria.
Chicago-based health care workers who rushed to the region have come home sharing storieslike a 4-year-old
