Antakya has become a city of ghosts.
TURKEY
Epicenters
Antakya
SYRIA
January 24
Highlighted areas
show nighttime lights
visible from space
Iskenderun
TURKEY
Antakya
Reyhanli
SYRIA
Samandag
February 12
Iskenderun
TURKEY
Satellite imagery
shows Antakya going
dark following
earthquake
Reyhanli
SYRIA
Samandag
Source: NASA Black Marble
JANICE KAI CHEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
TURKEY
Epicenters
Antakya
SYRIA
January 24
Highlighted areas
show nighttime lights
visible from space
Iskenderun
TURKEY
Antakya
Reyhanli
Samandag
SYRIA
February 12
Iskenderun
TURKEY
Satellite imagery
shows Antakya going
dark following
earthquake
Reyhanli
Samandag
SYRIA
Source: NASA Black Marble
JANICE KAI CHEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
TURKEY
Epicenters
Antakya
SYRIA
January 24
February 12
Highlighted areas
show nighttime lights
visible from space
Iskenderun
Iskenderun
TURKEY
TURKEY
Satellite imagery
shows Antakya going
dark following
earthquake
Antakya
Reyhanli
Reyhanli
SYRIA
SYRIA
Samandag
Samandag
Source: NASA Black Marble
JANICE KAI CHEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
TURKEY
Epicenters
Antakya
SYRIA
January 24
February 12
Highlighted areas
show nighttime lights
visible from space
Iskenderun
Iskenderun
TURKEY
TURKEY
Satellite imagery
shows Antakya going
dark following
earthquake
Antakya
Reyhanli
Reyhanli
Samandag
Samandag
SYRIA
SYRIA
Source: NASA Black Marble
JANICE KAI CHEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Most striking is the sense of abandonment — of countless lives suddenly interrupted — as survivors fled the city with whatever they could carry, leaving passports in the drawer, family pictures on the wall and laundry hanging on the line.
“Antakya bitti,” the lament goes. “Antakya is finished.”
History in ruins
The Turks say the city’s Kurtulus Street was the first thoroughfare in history to be illuminated at night. A shopping area dotted with antiques stores, restaurants and homes, it remained alive at all hours in modern times.
On one end of the street is Habib-i Neccar, one of Anatolia’s oldest mosques, now in ruins. On the other end is St. Pierre Church, already hundreds of years old when Christian crusaders oversaw an expansion in the early 12th century. A stairway was damaged in the quakes, but the stone face of the church was unharmed.
On the ground outside a boutique hotel whose rooms were named after Hittite kings and Greek goddesses lay remnants of previous lives: photocopied notes on gland tumors, a battered jean jacket, a container of baby food.
All was eerily quiet until Mustafa Ugur burst out of a residential building holding a cardboard box.
“Look at this, it’s beautiful,” he said, pulling a pigeon from the box. “I came here to help the old uncle and take his pigeons somewhere safe.”
Ugur looked up at the roof where an old man, not really an uncle but a friend, stood looking down. The pigeon-keeper fears that his building may still fall, the young man explained.
“So we decided to evacuate the birds.”
Signs of life
Even the buildings that remain upright in Antakya are crisscrossed with cracks that snake through bedrooms and kitchens. Curtains sway in the breeze through broken windows and holes in walls. High-rises that appear unscathed stand feet from others that have collapsed into hills of powder and twisted metal.
Sometimes, it was the delicate items that survived. A collection of sauces and vinegars that had tumbled out of a refrigerator. Expired Greek passports and a collection of frilly hair clips that had been safely ensconced in a drawer. A lidless jar, still intact, that spilled out a fine green powder. The handwritten note stuck to the glass read: “Nane,” Turkish for mint.
On some streets, soldiers stood watch to prevent looting. They huddled around makeshift fires, shivering in the cold. The empty apartments peered down at them.
Only memories remain
Colorful clothes were strewn across street corners throughout the city, covered in a film of dust. They had been donated to earthquake victims, but few residents were left to claim them. Most of the people still here were from search-and-rescue teams.
Veli and Yesim Bagi were the exception. Their couch looked out of place, along with their clean, purposefully arranged belongings sitting starkly against the rubble. They waited on the long, quiet road, their music store behind them, facing a once pristine park.
“This place was very beautiful,” said Veli, a music instructor.
“The neighborhood was a new neighborhood — most buildings were new. Everything was going to be perfect. Everything was supposed to be beautiful.”
He gestured toward the faded greenery across the way. “Kids used to play in this park. My students’ parents used to have a break in this park when I was teaching lessons.”
He opened his piano and stroked the keys. “The fingerprints of my kids are still on the ivories,” he said, tears falling. “Now we will have new students, we will teach other kids.”
They too were leaving the city, for Adana, where his parents had a house waiting for them. But first, Veli said, he was going to take his wife on a holiday.
correction
A previous version of this article misidentified passports found in a drawer as from Georgia; they were Greek. In addition, a caption incorrectly said that Veli and Yesim Bagi were collecting belongings from their music store; it was Veli and a friend doing the work. In another caption, Veli's and Yesim's names were reversed. The article and the captions have been corrected.