A week after the deadly earthquake it would have been Sercan’s third birthday. The little boy, who loved horses and Mickey Mouse, was due to celebrate with his parents at their apartment in the upmarket Renaissance building in Antakya. None of them knew when they went to bed one Sunday night that Sercan would never see his third birthday, even amid mounting questions about the safety of their building in a febrile earthquake zone.
When the first of two deadly quakes struck shortly after 4am the next morning, the Renaissance and its 249 flats became a mass grave. The building ripped clear from its foundations before all 12 storeys tipped forward and the block collapsed on to its face. The Koşar family – young Sercan, his mother, Selcan, and father, Serkan – were entombed in the rubble. Their bodies were so badly burned that their family in the nearby town of Ekinci are still awaiting the results of a DNA test to confirm their identities before they can organise a funeral.
