In Antakya, poor fear worst as towers rise from rubble

A huge rebuild is under way in the earthquake-damaged city -but many feel they will have no place in the new homes

- Ruth Michaelson

Rows of bright white marble gravestones dot a hillside on the outskirts of Antakya, some bearing the words "martyr of the earthquake". The final resting place for the city's dead will soon be overshadowed by tower blocks for those who survived. Bright yellow cranes jut into the skyline on the next hillside, slowly birthing a cluster of concrete skeletons, new government housing for some of the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes when deadly earthquakes struck southern Turkey and northern Syria last February.

"No one can bring back what was lost, as we lost everything," said İsa Akbaba, who lost seven members of his family along with his home.

İsa gently helped his mother, Suat, navigate the muddy hillside leading to the graves of his elder sister, Sidika, and his younger brother, Musa, pictures of their smiling faces carved into the headstones.

It is one year since the earthquakes wrenched them from their homes and entombed Sıdıka and Musa in the rubble - two among the 50,783 people estimated to have died in southern Turkey, with thousands more still classified as missing and 3 million displaced.

The destruction spanned an area of approximately 110,000 sq km, filling whole cities with mountains of rubble and causing an estimated $148.8bn in damage, according to a report from a Turkish parliamentary inquiry almost 10% of GDP. Hatay province, where Antakya sits, endured some of the worst losses, with almost half its population displaced and the largest share of the death toll.

In the immediate aftermath, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan toured the destruction and made a series of bold promises for a swift cleanup and fast reconstruction.

"We will rebuild these buildings within one year and will hand them back to citizens," he said, just four days after the earthquakes struck.