An increasing number of earthquake survivors have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and panic attacks, according to doctors working with them in a field hospital in Iskenderun, Hatay.
“Initially the patients … were those who sustained injuries under the rubble … now more of the patients are coming with post-traumatic stress disorder, following all the shock that they’ve gone through during the earthquake and what they have seen,” said Indian Army Major Beena Tiwari.
Many people were coming with panic attacks, she added.
The combined death toll in Türkiye and Syria exceeds 37,000, and the earthquakes and aftershocks have destroyed whole cities in both countries, leaving survivors homeless in the bitter cold, with many struggling to find shelter and basic sanitation.
The extent of the trauma survivors has experienced is enormous. Some have been pulled from the rubble after hours in the cold and darkness to discover family members have died or are missing, and the busy neighborhoods where they lived have been reduced to mounds of shattered concrete.
Tiwari is part of a team of almost 100 experts from India who established a field hospital to treat earthquake survivors, one of the worst in Türkiye’s modern history after a local hospital was destroyed.
PTSD is caused by very stressful, frightening, or distressing events, and people with PTSD can relive the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks and may have difficulties sleeping and concentrating.
“People only now are starting to realize what happened to them after this shocking period,” a Turkish medical official said.
Across the border in Syria, a makeshift center run by UNICEF provided children with “psychological first aid,” encouraging them to play and feel safe.
