Early Monday morning Mr. Michael Sahbas he reached his house at about one in the morning. He had just returned from Lebanon to his village of Panagia, 25 kilometers from Antioch in southeastern Turkey. He was born there, where he was in danger of losing his life a few days ago. As soon as he fell asleep, as at 4.17, emphasis on “K”woke up by vibration. “The earthquake was very strong.” We got up with my wife, went to grab the wall, but did not have time. “We couldn’t keep our feet, we couldn’t get up, we were too scared.” says “K” 30-year-old, Greek by origin, Mikh. Sahbas, who studied theology in Athens and Crete, after very long attempts to contact, as the telephone networks are malfunctioning.

“It took a while for the earthquake to stop,” he continues. As soon as he stopped, they gathered up their clothes and quickly left the house. It was an early morning. They didn’t have electricity. It was raining heavily and it was very cold, around 0 degrees. “We saw that many houses were badly damaged,” he emphasizes. So is the village church. At first they thought to take the car, but they could not, because the wall that blocked it fell on the road. So they went towards the park. “We couldn’t do anything, we got wet, we couldn’t get warm,” he recalls. Soon others arrived, about 300 of their fellow villagers. Since then, they have not returned home. However, he is one of the lucky ones. Thousands of people died from the terrible earthquakes of recent days in Turkey and Syria, but fortunately there were no casualties in the village of Panagia.

Mr. Sakhbas was also lucky because his house was not destroyed. But they are afraid to go inside. The last few nights they slept in the car. Last night their plan was to set up a tent. They enter the house for clothes or food. “There are other earthquakes all the time – today, Wednesday, this was last night, yesterday morning,” says “K”. Yesterday they lit a fire in the park to save gas in their cars, which they had been using as lodging for the past few nights. “The gas stations don’t have oil or gasoline,” he explains. When we ask him how he feels, he blurts out: “I don’t know and can’t imagine what we’re going to do. We only pray and wait for news from Antioch.”