Gaunt but clearly conscious, Ismail was rushed to a waiting ambulance, where paramedics immediately attended to the little boy. For a people dispossessed and visibly traumatized, first the unrelenting heat and now the torrential rain has made their suffering still worse. In the most devastated towns, like here in Adapazari, the greatest threat is judged to be disease spread by water coming through the rubble in which thousands of corpses remain trapped and decomposing. The health problem here is a disaster waiting to happen. There are maybe 30,000 bodies buried, and they're decomposing in the Turkish heat of the day.
Cholera lies just around the corner, and more medicine is desperately needed.
But despite today's remarkable survival story, the only activity in Adapazari is demolition, for even if a few people are clinging to life in the rubble, the calculation is that many more lives would be jeopardized if this health hazard is not razed to the ground. The heavy rains falling on the rubble and the thousands of decomposing bodies all around me here have certainly hastened the decision to abandon the search for survivors. Instead, the emphasis now is on clearance work to try and prevent the outbreak of disease. The mass graves, the bleakest of sights, are covered in white lime power being used as a disinfectant. Large numbers of trenches have been dug in preparation for those who have no survival story to tell and who still lie buried in the rubble of their own homes.