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From Our Own Correspondent
Southern Turkey: The Earthquake's Epicentre
00:28:54
In Kahramanmaras, families continue the search for their relatives late into the night.
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- [00:01]
Anna Foster
BBC Sounds Music Radio podcasts Good morning
- [00:07]
Narrator/Reporter
Today we're in Washington for the State of the Union address, where Joe Biden seeks to shift the focus away from recent controversy in Myanmar. A family tell of their escape two years on from the military coup that upended any prospect of democracy in the country. A prevent style program in Italy hopes to prevent young people joining the mafia. But we hear from from someone who escaped their clutches on his own. And Ukraine's rail service has kept going against the odds throughout Russia's invasion. So what's it like to travel on the overnight sleeper from Poland to Kyiv first at the epicenter of the earthquake that hit southern Turkey? It's hard to imagine now what existed before. With buildings and cities crumpled to the ground and repeated aftershocks hampering the rescue effort, the partial destruction of a Roman era castle in Gaziantep in this region highlighted not only the colossal toll it took on human life, but also on the heritage and culture of the entire region, a core part of its identity. Human suffering is visible on a vast canvas. The tragedy of a lost parent, a child who failed to escape. Livelihoods built over many years crushed in an instant. Communities wiped from existence. Anna Foster was in Karaman Mirage, where the full impact of the quake was felt.
- [01:41]
Anna Foster
Sounds tell you a lot Here, hope goes hand in hand with silence. The shushing of an expectant crowd means a miracle might be close. When rescuers search the rubble for survivors, they need to be able to hear everything. A voice, some movement. So they hold up their hands and ask for quiet as they climb inside destroyed buildings, clambering across twisted metal and great chunks of gray concrete. They're risking their lives to try and save one. When they do, cheering fills the air. For just a moment, joy returns. Where there's noise, there's often death. Many flattened buildings were quickly written off as too damaged to offer any chance of life holding out in the ruins. Now, diggers drag the debris away as search teams look for bodies. Personal items hold small clues. A bulging pale pink makeup bag is held up, and a woman standing next to me claims it. Sobbing, she pulls it close, knowing it means they've almost reached her daughter. These little things look so stark and out of place in the midst of the destruction. Each speaks of a life lost. There's a maths textbook, a child's blue plastic tricycle in the mud. A small boy's face grins out from a photograph. It's in a homemade frame, lovingly pieced together from colored lolly sticks and silver stickers. I wonder where he is now, if the family are waiting. When a body's discovered, the cries are heartbreaking. I watched one man sag to his knees after identifying his father's corpse buried in the dust. He threw his head back and howled. It's hard to even describe the sound. It came from deep inside. Inside and told of anguish more deeply than any words could. I can still hear it now. The dead are taken away in ambulances, flagged down in the street. Their blue lights and sirens are a constant sound. Sometimes they're carrying metal coffins ready to be used for the final journey. Others just hold a wheeled stretcher, enough to steady a blanket wrapped body on the way to the morgue. Logistically, things are challenging here. I tell you this not for sympathy, because at no point do the difficulties encountered by journalists even come close to the suffering of earthquake survivors. I tell you because it helps to explain how we do our work. Communication is tough. Decent mobile phone signals are scarce. Power is a precious commodity. When tented aid villages start to spring up, along with the hot drinks and the blankets, there's always a chargin point. Now it's often the busiest place to be. Everyone queues to get a battery boost. Like many others, we sleep in the car a few snatched hours overnight. One morning around 3am I was gazing quietly at a deserted recovery site. Here there were only bodies and the diggers had stopped for the night. I watched three people approach and recognized them. They were relatives who'd waited the whole day there in the hope of their loved ones being found.
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Anthony Zuerka
They.
- [05:00]
Anna Foster
A younger man in a yellow coat stepped forward and started to pull at the mound of debris with his bare hands. A bright figure against the gray chunks of concrete sheets of metal. I watched him drag them out and throw them to the ground. He was so small next to this jagged, towering heap. But I realized he couldn't wait. And that's why he'd come back in desperation. He was doing his own fruitless search. It's physically painful to be outside. At times there are the sub zero temperatures and biting winds and sweeping through teetering piles of rubble with a digger kicks up a huge amount of dust. The particles stick to the back of your throat and fill your lungs. Coughing doesn't clear it. Add to that the choking black smoke billowing from the fires, keeping people warm, and you get an idea of the grueling conditions in which so many people are now living. In the end, telling the story of an earthquake is complex. It's a huge responsibility. I spend a lot of time thinking about words how to convey the scale of a disaster like this, how to tell people stories with dignity. And now, at this stage, how to bring it all back to individual lives when the numbers get too large to comprehend. Parents, children, often whole families have had their futures snatched away. Powerful earthquakes like this one steal a lot.
- [06:31]
Narrator/Reporter
Anna Foster the discovery of classified documents at various properties associated with U.S. president Joe Biden this last month has raised awkward questions about his transparency. By law, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives. Mr. Biden's claimed they were merely stray papers from the 1970s and blamed poor packing by former White House staff. An investigation is now underway. Amid this swelling controversy, the president delivered his annual State of the Union address this week, where he intermingled calls for bipartisan cooperation with sharp exchanges with his Republican critics. Anthony Zuerka watched the speech and later traveled with the president to Florida.
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Anthony Zuerka
I've covered a few presidential campaigns in my day, and even though Joe Biden has not formally announced that he's running for re election in 2024, this Week felt like the start of something. And if this is in fact the start of Mr. Biden's unofficial re election campaign, then its unofficial kickoff came on Tuesday with the president's second State of the Union address. Given that Republicans now control the House of Representatives for the first time in his presidency, one of the messages of the president's speech telegraphed well in advance was that he was willing to work with the opposition party to get things done. Campaigns and elections are about contrasts, though, and while bipartisan cooperation is all well and good, there's a big fight looming between the president and Republicans over the federal government's borrowing authority, which must be raised in order to avoid defaulting on the national debt. On this topic, the president went on the attack during his speech, accusing Republicans of wanting to cut social programs for the elderly. Journalists get a copy of the State of the Union address a few minutes before the president begins speaking. When I scanned forward to this part of the speech, I knew Republicans would be furious about the president's allegations, but their response was even angrier than I thought. Howls of outrage and shouts of no and you're a liar. Earlier in the day, speaker of the house Kevin McCarthy had cautioned his fellow Republicans to hold their tongues and avoid discourteous outbursts. So much for that. The next day, the president was off to Wisconsin, a key electoral battleground for decades. The next day he was in Florida, also an important presidential election battleground, but also the home of two of Mr. Biden's foremost presidential rivals, former President Donald Trump and current governor and possible future candidate Ron DeSantis. The president's speech to a packed crowd at the University of Tampa felt like a campaign event. There were warm up speakers leading the crowd in chants, patriotic music playing and cheering college students, some clad in bikini tops because this is Florida, after all. Biden's speech was full of boasts about his past accomplishments and promises of more success to come. The only thing missing were balloons, the right kind, of course, and Biden 2024 signs. Florida is also famously home to millions of retirees who seldom miss voting in an election, and Mr. Biden again picked up on the charges that Republicans want to cut their benefits. The president's team handed out slick four page flyers, the kind that were clearly made well in advance with dire warnings about Republican plans, and Mr. Biden peppered his speech with bumper sticker ready phrases warning Republicans, I'm your worst nightmare. If touting bipartisan cooperation and then goading Republicans into swatting away his outstretched hand were one of the president's objectives in the State of the Union, the other was to talk up the economy, whose health over the next two years looms large over Mr. Biden's reelection bid. Although the numbers appear to be heading in the right direction. Inflation and gas prices are down, unemployment is at 50 year lows and GDP growth is steady if not robust. The American public isn't buying it yet. Half of those surveyed in a recent poll said they were worse off now than they were a year ago. In an interview the next day, the president said the US Wouldn't enter a recession this year or the next. Those words may come back to haunt him. Recent polls indicate that not many Americans, even Democrats, are enthusiastic about another four years of President Biden. Some are worried that his age he would be 86 at the end of his second term could limit his ability to effectively lead the nation. The president's smooth and at times animated delivery may have helped ease some of those concerns for now. But the age issue for Mr. Biden will be like a hurdle race, where one mistake could be costly. As his nascent, yet to be announced campaign gets off the ground and hits the road, the president with this speech, has at least cleared the first hurdle. But as the Justice Department investigates the discovery of classified documents in his home and personal office, there may be many more which might trip him up before Election Day.
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Narrator/Reporter
Anthony Zerka this month marks two years since the military in Myanmar seized power in a coup and ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's democratically elected government. Since the coup in 2021, much of the country has been engulfed in violence. Opponents of the military junta have joined ethnic rebel groups in resisting military rule. While the military ruthlessly cracked down on pro democracy protesters, the junta has made control over the media a key component of its attempts to consolidate power. Increasing surveillance, harassment and detention of reporters has turned Myanmar into one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist, says Rebecca Henchke.
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Rebecca Henschke
I wake at 3am and reach for the phone. We're all safe, the message reads. Relieved, I drift back to sleep. I'm in London and the team checking in is on the move in central Myanmar. Since seizing power in a coup two years ago, the military has closed its borders to foreign journalists, so there's no way of getting in. It's Burmese journalists who are bravely reporting what's happening, mostly uncredited for their own safety. When phone lines were finally restored after the coup, I called Win in Yangon. He's a freelance journalist and a good friend. He's married to another reporter, Pung, and they have a very active 6 year old daughter who I always hear laughing or screaming in the background of our calls. Everything has collapsed, he said. I can't eat. He was paralyzed with fear. It's over, he said. It's over. Nguyen was living in Hong Kong when Aung San Suu Kyi's party won a landslide election victory in 2012. It was hailed as the beginning of a new era. After eight long years living overseas, it was time to go home. Lots of journalist friends that had been in exile also came home around this time to do their bit, to dream, to build. After decades of oppressive military rule, there was a cautious opening for independent media. I visited during this time to run a training course for journalists. The room was filled with a sense of optimism and hope. A door had been pushed open. But then two Februarys ago, it was suddenly slammed shut when people took to the streets en masse, demanding the military restore democracy. Wynn and his wife left their daughter with her grandparents and went out to cover the protests. At first, he says, they were allowed to do their job. Police stood by while they interviewed angry young protesters, determined to get their message out to anyone who would listen. But then things changed rapidly. Security forces turned their weapons on the unarmed protesters. One morning I woke to this voice recording from Pun. We can hear from the apartment that they're shooting tear gas and sound guns, she says. We don't know if they're shooting with real guns. And then Win's voice cuts in. They're shooting people. They're shooting lots of people. They're really shooting. Authorities started arresting journalists. Independent local media houses were banned, their offices raided and trashed, their reporters forced to go on the run. Wynn and his wife moved apartments. He told me it wasn't clear who he could trust. Memory cards and hard drives filled with precious footage were hidden in his daughter's toys, the camera tucked behind a blow up unicorn. As the protest turned into an armed uprising, it became hard just to move around. There were checkpoints everywhere. The country was descending into civil war. Late one night, they packed the car and fled into the countryside to their family's village. At first they felt relief. We could breathe again, says Win. But even in their small village, it wasn't clear who they could trust. Win says the military have informers everywhere. Then they got news. A friend, a fellow journalist, had been arrested. It was time to leave again. It was a very hard decision to flee to neighbouring Thailand, he says. To leave what you have built, I turn my back on everything. But in the end, my daughter needs to be safe. He says she's already scarred. When their neighbours in Thailand set off fireworks for Lunar New Year, she clung to them, shaking, when a car tire on the road exploded near their house. It took them ages to calm her down. His friend, who was jailed, was released as part of a mass amnesty and he too is now in Thailand. He told Win he was burnt with cigarettes during his interrogation by the authorities, that he didn't know if he would get out alive. Both their passports soon expire. Their future is uncertain. The fact they're out of Myanmar means they're okay with me telling their story, but they've asked me not to use their real names. Other journalists are still in there, continuing to try and tell the world what's happening, knowing the risks that come with that. And I'll be anxiously waking in the early hours to check in on them.
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Narrator/Reporter
Rebecca Henschke, Italy's Prime Minister, touted the recent arrest in Palermo of one of the highest ranking mafia figures as a great victory for the Italian state. Matteo Messino Dinaro was one of the few remaining godfathers of the notorious Cosa Nostra branch, who was once recorded boasting that his victims could fill a cemetery. He had been on the run for nearly 30 years, mostly living in hiding, and became a symbol of the state's inability to reach the upper echelon of the organized crime syndicates. Indeed, questions are being raised as to how it was possible for the mafia boss to be on the run for so long. Seemingly protected, a culture of secrecy has prevailed, and those who come into the Mafia's orbit are forced to keep silent. Daniel Gordon recently heard the life story of one man who managed to escape the mob from the inside.
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Daniel Gordon
The hands making my breakfast for me right now were meant to be the hands of a killer. That's what his family had in mind for him. I think to myself as Joss Way glides a knife through his homemade hazelnut cake. It took me a long time to persuade them I wasn't cut out to be a mobster, he tells me as I take my place at the breakfast table in his guest house in northern Italy. But I just had to make them understand I was a liability, a danger not just to myself, but to them as well. Jossue is now in his early 50s, and what he's telling me about happened when he was still a teenager, long before his neatly trimmed beard turned grey and the hair under his flat cap started to thin. He grew up in the south of the country, in a small town controlled by the Ndrangheta, the mafia that dominates Calabria. His stepfather was a neighbourhood mafia boss, and it was taken for granted that when he came of age, he'd follow suit. But Josue had other ideas. I was for friendship and brotherhood, not crime. In the Mafia, they talk a lot about friendship, but it's all nonsense. There is no friendship. Someone might be your friend today, but tomorrow you'll quite happily shoot him and think nothing of it, he says. Another thing that troubled him was the rule of omerta. Silence. Let's say someone gets shot and you saw it. The first thing you learn is that you don't talk. If they ask you, did you see it? You say, no, I didn't see anything. I was chatting with my friends. I didn't notice anything. That way of life wasn't for him. And so he made up his mind to leave Calabria and the world of organized crime. But it wasn't going to be easy. He's talking about the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a bloody war was being fought between rival clans, and obstacle number one was his own family. Refusing to take part in something so important was tantamount to joining the other side. That was my biggest fear. In order to kill you, an enemy clan has to hunt you down first. But your family knows exactly where to find you and what your movements are, he tells me. Things got even tougher when Josue was arrested for a shooting he's adamant he had no part in. He knew who'd done it. He was brought to trial. And when he wouldn't tell even the judge who the real culprits were, he was sent to a young offender's institution. He was 17. But what bothered him more than the prison sentence was that his silence had impressed the leaders of the Mafia clan. It was like I'd had to do an exam and I'd passed, he told me. They stopped talking about me as a boy and referred to me as a man instead. So, having proved himself by keeping silent, he'd have no choice but to become a fully fledged member of the Ndrangheta when the time came for him to be released and and do whatever was commanded, even commit murder. If he didn't, he'd forever have a target on his back. It took some lucky twists of fate to save him. A prisoner amnesty meant he got moved to a halfway house long before his sentence was up, and from the relative safety and independence that provided, he was able to visit his family and tell them over and over again that he was never going to live up to their expectations. Eventually, after two years of this, he felt he'd done all he could to convince his family, and he decided to take the risk of leaving for good. With no more than a change of clothes in his suitcase, he set off for northern Italy. Jossue ended up in the foothills of the Alps near Turin, and the guest house he and his wife now run he'd largely restored himself. Thirty years later, he feels at home here and says he has no regrets about leaving southern Italy. Yes, he agrees, it may have warmer sunshine and beaches to rival the Caribbean. And he might have made more money by joining the mob than by running a guest house. But what would be the point if he'd then be in fear all day, every day, of getting shot or arrested? I have a beautiful house and a beautiful family, he says, as we look across the surrounding fields. I don't have to be looking over my shoulder all the time.
- [22:17]
Narrator/Reporter
Dan Gordon. And finally, Ukraine's train system has won plaudits for its ability to smoothly run despite frequent bombardments, power cuts and disruption due to the ongoing Russian invasion. It has become a symbol both of the country's resistance and resilience in the war, which was also on display at Westminster hall this week when Ukraine's President Zelensky addressed peers and MPs in a surprise visit. Back at home, however, Ukraine's railways have proven to be a national backbone, with an enviable punctuality record, which last month showed 95% of its trains departed on schedule. Nick Redmayne was on the Polish border recently and travelled into Kyiv on one of Ukrainian Railways night sleepers.
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Nick Redmayne
Finally arriving from Warsaw, my train pulled into Helm in the far east of Poland. It was a tired industrial station of nondescript, windy, open platforms and rusty overpasses. No warmth, no comfort, nothing memorable. It wasn't a place you'd choose to visit. However, Helm has an importance that belies its tired, utilitarian aspect. Since Russia's invasion last year, Ukraine's skies have been closed to commercial flights. So it's from Helm every day that a Ukrainian sleeper train departs on a 15 hour journey to Kyiv. For ordinary people, the importance of this tracked lifeline has never been greater. Before the invasion, Ukrailsnitsiya was often the brunt of typically self deprecating Ukrainian jokes, most of them highlighting Soviet era inefficiency, inertia and corruption. It's a vast government institution responsible for 15,000 miles of track and 230,000 employees. However, once Russian rockets began to strike Ukraine's towns and cities, trains were key to evacuating millions of civilians and, though it's less openly discussed, to providing vital logistical support to Ukraine's military. At Helm station, a brooding diesel locomotive was already on the opposite platform. It lay at the head of six or seven blue and yellow sleeper carriages, each marked with the Ukrainian Trident. Waiting passengers were, as usual, mostly women and girls, together with a handful of old men and journalists. Due to wartime mobilization, Ukrainian men are not generally permitted to leave the country. Once the carriages were ready, Ukraine's Nitsia staff checked tickets and passports. I joined the queue with my colleague Dom, and we hauled ourselves and our baggage up onto the train in the cramped four berth compartments. A polite game of Tetris ensued as we sought to establish ourselves for the journey. Lula and Jana, a grandmother and her 20 year old granddaughter from Kyiv, were to be our companions. They were returning from three days in Poland, staying with relatives. It was incredible, said Jana, our first time to leave Ukraine since February last year. But it was also quite hard. It's a long journey for such a short time. The attendant took orders for tea, hot water dispensed from an alarming high pressure samovar at the end of the carriage. The tea itself was served in elegant glasses with shiny metal holders. The frontier lay only a few miles down the line. A team of young, confident Ukrainian border guards in fatigues boarded the train. They politely but thoroughly checked documentation. Then we were on our way, picking up speed. My phone pinged to announce welcome back to Ukraine. Through windows covered by plastic tape to mitigate against flying glass shards, our view of the snowy woodlands faded as the wintry afternoon light gave way to darkness. I clambered into my top bunk. The motion of the train combined with accumulated fatigue soon brought a fitful sleep of dreams blended with reality. The sound of fingers on a keyboard filtered in as an insomniac journalist bashed out his copy. I'd been concerned that the combined volume of my snoring and Dom's might disturb our companions. I needn't have worried. Babushka Lula outdid us both. At one point, a hefty battery power pack dropped from Dom's bunk onto the slumbering Lula below. She interrupted her reverberating rhythm with a shriek. Later, half falling from my own bunk almost rendered me a casualty not of war, but of my own incompetence. Socks and slippery bunk ladders do not mix well, resting us from uneasy slumber. Some hours later, the compartment's lights snapped on, an abrupt prelude to arrival in Kyiv. Wishing Lula and Jana well, we climbed down onto a still, dark platform. I looked at my watch. We'd arrived exactly on time. In some ways, lack of modernisation has been an advantage to Ukraine's railways. The stress test of war has revealed the resilience of this legacy structure. And among Ukrainians, too, the remarkable fortitude of railway employees has transformed their status from being the butt of jokes to esteemed iron heroes.
- [27:55]
Narrator/Reporter
Nick Redmayne and that's all we've got time for. We'll be back again next week on both Thursday and Saturday mornings. Do join us.
- [28:08]
Anna Foster
I'm Paris Lees. Welcome to the flipside from BBC Radio 4. In each episode, I'll tell two stories from opposite sides of the coin and use science to ask questions about elements of the human experience that we sometimes take for granted.
- [28:31]
Nick Redmayne
Turns out that this person that I submitted my apartment to, he was, you know, a scammer.
- [28:36]
Anthony Zuerka
I feel like now I am the person that I was when I was on the Internet at 13.
- [28:41]
Anna Foster
It's lies and it's covered with lipstick and glitter. Subscribe to the Flip side with me, Paris Lees on BBC Sounds.