The Firats survived Turkey’s earthquakes, here’s their life a year later

A year on from the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, Al Jazeera follows up with a displaced family in Adiyaman.

Besni, Turkey – Ahmet Firat steps out of the cramped confines of his container for a cigarette, and to share memories from last year’s earthquakes that he doesn’t want his children to hear about – details that continue to prey on his mind.

After the first magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria in the early morning of February 6, 2023, Ahmet, his wife, and their three children drove 50km (31 miles) from their heavily damaged home in Besni to Adiyaman, where most of their relatives lived.

The southeast Turkish city was a war-scape of collapsed and crippled buildings, and a second magnitude 7.5 earthquake later in the day compounded the carnage.

Over the next 10 days, Ahmet dug out the remains of 12 relatives.

“Sometimes we retrieved the body parts, piece by piece, not the whole body. Sometimes the parents were holding their kids and died like that. It really affected me psychologically,” he recalled, his soft voice becoming nearly a whisper.