'I lost all my friends': Saskatoon couple coping with loss of family and friends in Turkiye
A Saskatoon couple is left feeling powerless to help their family and friends dig out of the rubble following the two major earthquakes in Turkiye on Monday.
Mehmet Dökmeci and his wife Meltem desperately tried to reach anyone they could in the day after the quake, but phone service and power were scarce.
“Everybody left their phones or car keys and everything, and they got stuck outside with nothing,” said Dökmeci.
Dökmeci worried for his 83-year-old father in Antakya.
“At that moment, we thought the whole building collapsed. We couldn’t get a hold of anyone.”
Over a day later, they got a hold of the caretaker of the building.
“We found out my father was OK, and he was in a park right beside the building that he came out. They were hanging out there with the neighbours trying to get warm.”
With no power, they relied on fire for light and warmth. It was a moment of relief, but it was tinged with pain, says Dökmeci.
“I know that he’s probably not happy that he’s alive. All his brothers, all his nieces and nephews are in the rubble; it’s not a good feeling,” he said. “I can’t recognize my hometown.”
Meltem says she’s lost both family and friends -- uncles, aunts and cousins
“I lost all my friends,” said Meltem. “There is just a little, little friends alive. All my relatives, everybody, almost 80 per cent gone.”
Meltem says she has daily prayers for her lost relatives.
“I am praying to my sister. Thank you, my sister. You are my angel. You are the angel.”
The amount of territory search and rescue teams have to cover has created an impossible task, says Dökmeci.
“This is about 66,000 square kilometres of a place, we’re talking about 10 cities, and about 13 to 15 million people.”
They feel so small trying to cope with the disaster from afar, says Dökmeci.
Melmet is calling on Saskatoon residents to contribute what they can to the relief effort.
“Turkiye definitely needs help. Please help Turkiye. There’s no houses … they need food, they need rescue now, please, please, Canada, help.”
The couple has started a GoFundMe page to raise funds for relief organizations, including the Red Crescent.
-With files from Tyler Barrow
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6946509.1719687583!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.jpg)
Who are the richest people in Canada? Here's how many billionaires there are
If you gathered all the wealth that billionaires currently have worldwide, you would have about US$14.2 trillion, according to Forbes Magazine. But what about in Canada alone?
'7 years of regret': Raunchy leg piece wins bad tattoo competition at Edmonton Expo Centre
Friday night was a celebration of mistakes for a small group of body art enthusiasts.
Time crunch, rules mess could plague a Liberal leadership race
Calls have intensified for Justin Trudeau to resign as head of the party he almost single-handedly pulled back from the brink after a decimating electoral defeat in 2011.
Despair in the air: For many voters, the Biden-Trump debate means a tough choice just got tougher
The sound you might have heard after the presidential debate this past week was of voters falling between a rock and a hard place.
Lightning deal Sergachev, Jeannot; Maple Leafs acquire Tanev's rights at NHL draft
General managers wheeled and dealed Saturday in Sin City.
235 flights cancelled as WestJet waits to hear from labour minister on next steps in mechanics strike
WestJet said 235 flights have been cancelled Saturday as it waits to see what the next steps are in its ongoing labour dispute with its mechanics.
A year ago, she drank battery acid to escape life under the Taliban. Today, she has a message for other Afghan girls
Holding a mirror steady in one hand, Arzo carefully applies pencil to her brows as she gets ready for an English lesson a short walk from her home on the outskirts of Pakistani megacity Karachi.
A Florida auctioneer was about to sell an 1800s pocket watch. He learned it was a stolen piece of U.S. presidential history
A pocket watch that belonged to Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt was returned to his New York home this week after it was stolen decades ago and later showed up at an auction, according to the FBI and the National Park Service.
U.S. and Europe warn Lebanon's Hezbollah to ease strikes on Israel and back off from wider Mideast war
U.S., European and Arab mediators are pressing to keep stepped-up cross-border attacks between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militants from spiraling into a wider Middle East war that the world has feared for months. Iran and Israel traded threats Saturday of what Iran said would be an 'obliterating" war over Hezbollah.