Quake survivor lives in tent with her dog who warned family just before disaster

KAHRAMANMARAS/Türkiye

An earthquake survivor family lives in the same tent with their dog who warned them by howling just before the Feb. 6 disaster in Türkiye.

Hatice Avci, who lives in southern Kahramanmaras province with her husband and daughter, keeps her dog “Mihriban" with her, who woke them up by scratching and howling at around 4 a.m. -- 18 minutes before the earthquake.

The dog then climbed onto a chair on the balcony and began to howl, Avci said.

Speaking to Anadolu, Avci noted that Mihriban is normally a very docile animal and does not bark at all.

"When she started to get cranky (just before the quake), I took her in so that the neighbors wouldn't be disturbed. She ran to the balcony again and started to howl again. I took her inside again. She was grumpy in my lap, she was scratching and wanted to get out," she recalled.

"Now we are together in the tent, and she's lying on our laps. For the first three days, she did not eat at all, she was very scared. She is comfortable in the tent, but very grumpy when she enters our demolished house," she said.

Avci, who was settled in a tent city set up in a sports complex with her family after their house was severely damaged in the quakes, treats her dog Mihriban with kid gloves.

On Feb. 6, magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes struck numerous Turkish provinces, taking over 50,000 lives.

Around 14 million people in Türkiye have been affected by the quakes as well as many others in northern Syria.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz in Ankara