Current Events > Anyone feel a tad heavy this week because of the situation in Turkey?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I bet most of the replies here are going to tell me it's "just" a natural disaster and that it doesn't affect my life in any way since I live far away from Turkey.

But now that I have that out of the way, it's still super fucked up regardless. It's basically an international disaster over there. Like...sheesh. Last I checked, the death toll was 12,000. And I bet that's not even the final death toll. The situation is horrific and I really hope everyone recovers.

Theres a pic circulating of a father holding his dead childs hand while he waits for someone do dig her body out. Its very sad and lingers in the mind, but Im not there to pick through rubble, so I go to work and continue with my life. Yeah, its heavy and terribly sad.

The number of deaths could be over 20k. Its shocking

NecroFoul99 posted...

Its very sad and lingers in the mind, but Im not there to pick through rubble, so I go to work and continue with my life. Yeah, its heavy and terribly sad.

You said it perfectly.

The death toll between turkey and Syria is actually closer to 20,000 now. The silver lining, however small it may be, is that this is bringing together organizations and countries that only a couple weeks ago probably wouldn't even pick up the phone for each other. You have countries being stonewalled by turkey in their NATO application sending teams of rescuers. Checkpoints between Syria and turkey have opened up so that aid workers from rebel held areas can come into the country to support. Israel is sending their rescue teams.

With a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work, some of these acts of Goodwill may actually branch out and lead to a little bit more peace and stability in the region as these folks come together over a shared tragedy.

Same time post, although its not really an appropriate time to point that out

Death toll last I saw was 19,300. Kinda shows how fragile life is that about 20k people could die just like that suddenly.

MelbuFrahma4 posted...

Death toll last I saw was 19,300. Kinda shows how fragile life is that about 20k people could die just like that suddenly.

While it is possible for that many people to die that suddenly, a significant part of these deaths is because Turkish citizens pay into an earthquake relief fund that very clearly has been embezzled for a long time. Buildings right along the fault line were very clearly not built to any sort of safety specification and relief teams have been taking days to get there because they simply weren't prepared. We're talking billions of dollars collected that never went anywhere. Erdogan shut down Twitter after people started complaining about the government's slow response time because he has an election coming up.

This tragedy could have been one with a much smaller death count if it wasn't for the massive amount of corruption that turkey suffers under the current government.

The death toll is tragic probably the worst natural disaster in recent history. Really sad start to the year and the people of turkey.

Yeah it's horrible. When I first saw the magnitude in the headline, I wasn't expecting the devastation to be so severe.

I have a few friends who live in that area and they're all safe. so maybe it's self-centered of me but mostly I'm just relieved they're fine. the disaster as a whole is just too detached from me and my usual experiences to see it any other way

Just numb and cold as I usually am.

But it makes me wonder if or when some really big shit happens all across California.

Death would be in the millions.