“I woke up the next morning and my phone was full of calls and messages asking if I was okay”. Claudia Senón is 21 years old and is an Audiovisual Communication student at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). The 7.8-magnitude earthquake was caught while studying in Turkey, despite being more than 1,000 kilometers from the Syrian border, the epicenter of the earthquake that killed at least 11,000 and injured 53,000.
When Claudia woke up, she learned from the news and messages.. The earthquake occurred at 4 am and far from where he was, but his family was very worried for several hours because he had been visiting that exact area the previous week and his relatives did not know if he was still there.
María José Valdivieso is 23 years old and is also studying Fine Art at UPV.. The earthquake brought him much closer, but also inconclusive. He has been in Valencia since Wednesday and after completing his Erasmus studies in Turkey, he tells that he decided to go to Istanbul for a few days before returning to Valencia.
Early on Monday morning, while he was asleep, the owner of the hostel knocked on all the tenants to come down into the street. “He told us to come down quickly, this is a serious emergency.“. Valdivieso put on a jacket over his pajamas and 30 minutes at minus six degrees under snowfall Istanbul, with dozens of people.
“I didn’t understand what was going on at that moment, I just had to come down.. Then they told us everything, that there was an earthquake hundreds of kilometers away and that we were doing a drill in case there was an aftershock in Istanbul,” says Valdivieso.
At first he didn’t care because he did his Erasmus in an area in Turkey where minor earthquakes are common. “I thought for another one, then when I got up I saw on the news that it was really devastating.“, To explain.
Volunteers in every street
Senon explains that although he didn’t feel the earthquake, he did.”too much sadness and too much shock in the country. I see everyone is so excited, people are constantly checking social media for the latest updates,” he explains.
The population also helps in every possible way. “All my friends here signed up for one of the volunteer points. carrying blankets or essentials. Trucks don’t stop to go to the area, and I see people in my area (a city near Ankara) very focused on the tragedy,” he explains.
One of the first things Claudia saw on her phone was this: An email from Valencia Polytechnic University, He, who has four students studying in Turkey, asks about his status to confirm that he is well and is out of the danger zone. That e-mail also reached Valdivieso.
Valdivieso literally returned to Valencia the day after the earthquake. “I thought they were going to cancel my flight because that happens with a lot of people.but we finally got out even though he had arrived a few hours earlier,” she recalls.
Now, he tells that he has many acquaintances in Turkey who are completely devoted to doing their part to alleviate this tragedy. “I have friends in the area who have relatives who sadly lost their lives.“, account. He explains that the consequences were catastrophic and there were a large number of people affected. “The magnitude of the earthquake was enormous, even for a country relatively accustomed to,” he says.