Nural Sumbultepe said she heard screaming before she felt the ground shake, that was when she knew she was living through an earthquake.“I heard a lot of screaming, a lot of panic, there was a lot of anxiety attacks among people and children were crying,” Sumbultepe said. ”We just left everything and ran outside.”Sumbultepe lives in Vancouver and works as a teacher in Richmond, but this week she arrived in her home country of Turkiye to help her extended family after the major earthquake two weeks ago. Her brother-in-law died instantly when the 15-storey building they lived in collapsed, and five other family members were trapped under the rubble for days. They did not survive. Almost immediately after the quake Sumbultepe started planning a trip home in order to help her other family members in person. This week she arrived in Arsuz, a coastal town on the Mediterranean in the Hatay province. She visited the site where her family members were killed, along with a library and church she visited as a child. Both buildings had collapsed. In the rubble she found hundreds of pictures belonging to her brother and sister-in-law.
Monday, the area was hit by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake, followed by aftershocks,
“We all fled outside,’ she said. “Most of the people slept in their cars, some people like me slept in the doorway.” Sumbultepe has lived through an earthquake before. She was in Istanbul when a magnitude 7.6 struck in 1999. She lived in a tent for four weeks helping English rescue crews with translation.
“My job was to say, ‘Is anybody under the rubble,’” she said. “But this is like 10 times worse, this earthquake is 10 times worse and it’s on a bigger scale.”
Sumbultepe is planning to stay in Turkiye for another week before returning to Canada. If possible, she’s hoping to bring some of her family members with her to offer financial and emotional support. Source:bc.ctvnews.ca
Thursday, May 7, 2026
