According to official data, there were deaths in Turkey more than 50.000 people, and over 125.000 were injured, he writes Nanny Vela.
The hardest hit was Hatay on the border with Syria. Entire parts of that city were destroyed.
Many people moved to other cities.
Those who remained still mostly live in container settlements, which were only meant to be temporary accommodation. There are about 200 such settlements in the wider area of Hatay alone. About 187.000 people found refuge there.
Containers are overcrowded, there is often no electricity or water
Discontent among them is great. They complain that the living space is insufficient, in many containers several families live together.
Teacher Serap Selcuk and her two children, for example, share a container with five other people. She says she asked to be given another container, but has not yet received an answer.
In the first few days after the earthquake, they received help - free food and basic necessities. That is no more. Selcuk says she has only received two aid packages from the Turkish disaster agency AFAD.
In addition to the constant shortages of electricity and water, a big problem is that the many damaged roads have not yet been repaired. Some are completely impassable, and when it rains, the problem gets worse, because the water does not drain away.
Serap Selcuk also complains about the increase in street crime.
In the early days, the police and other security services were there, in their container settlement. "There are only a few cameras left today." Recently, a man threatened another man with a gun. "No one intervened," says Selchuk.
Very few new apartments
The construction of new apartments in Hataj is progressing slowly. 45.000 new housing units are planned, but for now only slightly more than 2.600 are nearing completion. According to official information, at the moment only 25 apartments are ready for occupancy.
"We had an apartment of 195 square meters, now we live in 21 square meters," says 70-year-old Abdulsamet Pulat.
Still, he says, he is grateful to the state. "We did not starve, nor did we die of thirst." "We always had a roof over our heads," says Pulat.
His wife was injured in the earthquake. She was operated on in Izmir, after which they lived for a while in a student dormitory in Samsun, in the north of Turkey. Then they returned to Hatay.
"I want to live again where my apartment used to be," says Pulat.
In the industrial zone of the city, 95 percent of the buildings collapsed. Ethem Yzer bakes bread in a damaged building.
The number of his customers, however, dropped significantly after the earthquake: he used to sell 4.000 buns every day, today only a thousand. He used to have seven workers in the bakery, today he works alone. He complains that shop owners like him don't get any help.
"The state has forgotten us," says car mechanic Levent Ineichi. "Many would like to work again, but the state does not support it sufficiently. There were many talented craftsmen here, but they left and never came back. It's a big loss."
Taxi driver Ekrem Ozturk is the last in his company, which once had 15 drivers. "Many say that everything is back to normal here, but that is not true," he says.
"Sometimes I wish I had died in an earthquake." Then I wouldn't have to watch all this anymore."
In Syria it is even more difficult
The situation in neighboring Syria is probably even more difficult.
For Maryam abo Atban from the town of Jindires in the northwest of the country, it is hard to believe that a whole year has passed since the devastating 7,8 degree earthquake destroyed her life. The memories of the morning of February 6, 2023 are painfully vivid for the 42-year-old mother.
"When the sun came up, half my family was dead," he says.
"Now we live in a tent, just a few meters from where two of our children died under the rubble of the house," she told DW.
"My husband wanted to leave, but I refused." "No matter where we are, their pictures are always in front of our eyes," he says, crying.
According to the United Nations, at least 6.000 Syrians died in the earthquake. Data from some other organizations is closer to the figure of 8.000, and the non-governmental organization Syrian Network for Human Rights states that 10.024 people died.
Return of Assad
The official number is practically impossible to determine because different authorities control different parts of the country. After 13 years of civil war, Syria is divided into areas controlled by the government under President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, and those controlled by opposition groups and militias backed by Turkey, the US and others.
That political fragmentation helped Assad reassert himself in office. He insisted in the days after the earthquake that any aid to Syria, including that for rebel-held territories, must go through Damascus, the capital controlled by his government.
In addition, many Arab nations, even those that had cut ties with Assad, offered to help after the earthquake. This opened the way for talks to resume, and three months later, in May 2023, Assad was readmitted to the Arab League. That group of 22 countries suspended Syria from the organization in 2011 because of the regime's crackdown on the local population.
Less and less help
However, not even a year after the earthquake, the situation in the country has not improved. "Syria is still in an absolutely catastrophic situation," Julian Barnes-Dacey, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Berlin think tank the European Council on Foreign Relations, told DW. Instead of any improvement, he says, "Syria has fallen off the focus of the international agenda and we're seeing funding dry up."
Hiba Zayadin, senior researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, says: “A year later, the humanitarian and economic crisis in Syria has worsened. "Many of the damaged buildings are still in ruins, and the UN's funding is being reduced at a time when more and more people are almost entirely reliant on aid to survive," Zayadin told DW.
The same goes for Abdul Razak Khaled al Sah, also from Jindires. He lost ten family members and his house in the earthquake.
"A year ago I fell below zero and had no help," he tells DV in Jindires. "No one even gave me a tent, so I had to borrow money and buy one, and no one has compensated me for that either."
According to the World Food Program (WFP), Syria is among the 10 most hungry countries in the world, and about 12,9 million Syrians - more than half of the population - suffer from hunger. Despite this, the UN organization announced in January that it would end the food aid program for Syria due to the "financial crisis".
"Most Syrians are now focused on daily survival. And the collapse continues," says Barnes-Dacey.
