HATAY, Turkey (Reuters) – Restaurant owners from across Turkey travelled to Hatay, one of the regions worst-hit by Monday’s devastating earthquake, to dish up kebabs, rice and other hot meals on Friday to disaster survivors.
Omer Faruk, who runs a restaurant in Konya in central Turkey, travelled to a tent city housing those who had lost their homes. Some 550 white tents have been erected next to Hatay Stadium – usually used for soccer – in the south of the country.
“We are providing food to our citizens who are suffering due to the earthquake. We are all restaurateurs. We are here to help quake victims,” said Faruk.
Long lines of residents, including many children, queued up to receive the meals. Volunteer Sardar Kayak said they were providing food for 1,000 people a day at the stadium, as well as another thousand in nearby villages.
With some 6,500 buildings collapsed in Turkey and countless more damaged, hundreds of thousands of people lack safe housing.
Banks of tents have been erected in stadiums and shattered city centres, and Mediterranean and Aegean summer beach resorts outside the quake zone have opened up hotel rooms for evacuees.
(Reporting by Deniz Uyar, Antony Paone and Edward Baran; Writing by Rosalba O’Brien; Editing by Leslie Adler)
