When Tekin Akdulum woke to the news that a catastrophic 7.8-magnitude earthquake had hit his home country, the first thing he did was open his family's Whatsapp group.
His parents live in East Turkey, but other relatives including aunties, uncles, and cousins all still live in his birth town of Adiyaman - just a few hours away from the epicentre.
Buildings there have been reduced to rubble, as rescuers were still pulling survivors from the wreckage several days on from the disaster. It's estimated over 36,000 people have been killed in one of the world's most devastating natural disasters. Around 5,800 people have died after the earthquake also hit Syria.
READ MORE: How people in Greater Manchester can help after Turkey and Syria earthquake
For Tekin, 42, who owns a sweet shop in Didsbury and now lives with his wife and son in Bradford, news of earthquakes in Turkey don't come as a particular shock. He recalls sleeping in his parents cars after an earthquake hit the country when he was a young boy.
But when he was unable to reach his family in Adiyaman for several hours last Monday (6 February) he feared the worse. Luckily, all his immediate family have now been accounted for, but some distant relatives remain missing - feared dead.
Pieces of their home are now scattered across the town, and everything they once owned has been lost. But for Tekin, all that matters is that they are alive. "Everything else can be re-bought," he says.
The dad-of-one flew out to be with his family on Monday - a week on from the earthquake. He wants to make sure they have all the supplies they need to keep them safe, and to bring some much-needed 'positive energy.'
"They have lost everything, everything is destroyed," he said, speaking to the Manchester Evening News. "They lived in flats and now the flat are just rubble.
"After we saw the news I put a message in our group Whatsapp chat to make sure everyone was okay. We couldn't reach them at first because they didn't have their phone chargers and everything had run out of battery.
"Finally we found out that the earthquake had hit them but that they are okay. My mother's side is okay but there are some distant relatives on my father's side who are still missing."
Tekin grew up in Adiyaman and moved to Izmir with his parents at the age of seven. His parents still live in the city, which was fortunately unscathed by the horror faced in other parts of the country.
The risk of earthquakes is so real in Turkey, Tekin said he would always tell his parents to make sure they went to sleep with their phone on charge and to make sure there was a bottle of water next to their bed - in case they ever got trapped.
"I was very scared for my family when I found out about the most recent earthquake but it wasn't a massive shock," he said. "You never know when these things are going to happen.
"But this one was really bad. It was 7.8 magnitude and happened twice. The buildings there are just not strong enough to withstand that. The government, not only this one but the ones before, haven't done enough to make the buildings safe for these events."
Tekin said he waited several hours before he eventually heard from his family in Adiyaman and learnt they were safe. Tragically, that not was the case for everyone.
In the city, Associated Press journalists saw someone plead with rescuers to look through the rubble of a building where relatives were trapped. They refused, saying no one was alive there and that they had to prioritise areas with possible survivors.
"I think it was about six or seven hours before I heard from my family that they were safe," he said. "Everyone was trying to call. There are 3,000 people who live there so the phone lines were jammed.
"They didn't have anything to eat or drink on Monday. The morning it happened all the shops were closed or destroyed. One they stayed in their car without anything.
"They have moved to relatives in other cities so they are all safe now.
"They are alive and that's the most important thing. Everything else we can buy back. It's been amazing to see all the people helping my country, even Greece. But we are all human after all."
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