It is the ninth day of February, following seventy two hours of hell, for those poor souls that dwell, down where the Anatolia, Arabia, and Africa tectonic plates meet.
From Turkey's southern border to north-west Syria, an earthquake swell, nine thousand buildings fell, sixty thousand dead last count, the news stays on repeat.
Yet for survivors, a nightmare they will never dispel, having witnessed horrors too awful to tell, feeling safer outside, no walls or roof in freezing snow and sleet.
The grief stricken continue to mount, mourning death in numbers none could foretell, how great a loss a faultline disaster would spell, huddled round fires seeking heat.
The earthquake struck eight provinces, epicentre near Gaziantep, a 7.8 Richter scale death knell, leaving the city an empty shell, stamped flat as if by giant feet.
Along the border help has arrived, too late for this desperate corner of hell, no voices left under the rubble life is a bagatelle, a crushing sense of defeat.
So I pray for the souls of the dead, trapped below in a concrete cell, all the lost children and the hopes their shortened lives dispel; a generation delete.
A. McTiernan
