Group Raises $30,000 for Quake Victims

The depths of Turkey’s anguish can be found at the top of a list of sorely needed relief supplies: tents and body bags.

As the count of the dead continued half a world away, about 75 Turkish Americans met in an emotional Costa Mesa gathering Sunday to trade updates and rumors from home in the wake of last week’s devastating earthquake.

They also came to help. About $30,000 was raised through the weekend in amounts ranging from a few dollars to $10,000.

More donations were expected over the next few weeks, said relief organizers from the American-Turkish Assn. of Southern California.

“Every one of us in this room must respond with assistance, for the sake of our friends, relatives and neighbors,” said association Chairman David Erbas-White, who told the crowd that Southern California and Turkey are linked by the nature of the ground they stand on--fault-riddled and earthquake-prone.

“Just as we learned valuable lessons from the tragedy of the Northridge quake,” he said, “our involvement now in helping the victims of Turkey will provide us with a training ground for our own future calamities.”

Similar aid efforts were being repeated across the country.

Operation USA, a Los Angeles-based relief organization, was to learn today if the U.S. Air Force will transport 40 tons of emergency medical supplies--gathered initially to aid victims of the Balkans conflict--from a Wilmington warehouse to quake victims in Turkey.

Some of the supplies were donated by Allegiance Corp., a Deerfield, Ill.-based health care company. The rest were bought with $20,000 in private donations. Without the Air Force plane, the supplies probably will be trucked to Chicago and then flown on a Turkish commercial airline, delaying delivery up to four days.

“We’ve had a real problem trying to get air transportation,” said Richard Walden, president of Operation USA, which has provided emergency supplies for foreign disasters for 20 years.

More shipments are likely as relief efforts continue. Turkish community activists Sunday asked for donations of cash and supplies, ranging from medical equipment to prefabricated housing to shelter homeless survivors before winter sets in.

The generosity came amid a growing sense of desperation.

“Our worst nightmares have become reality,” said Hayret Yalav, the Turkish consul general in Los Angeles who attended the gathering in the community meeting room at the Orange County Edition of The Times. “More than 35,000 people remain missing. This means they are under the rubble. . . . We have to face the reality that more than 90% of the people missing and unaccounted for [may be] dead.”

Seniz Nalcioglu, who is leading the American-Turkish Assn.’s earthquake relief efforts, said there are about 800 Turkish immigrant families in Orange County. Nearly all have family affected by the devastation, which covers an area about 20 miles wide and 175 miles long.

“My first reaction was to call my mother,” Nalcioglu said. She lives a few hundred miles from the epicenter. “She is fine.”

But the family has been waiting to hear from a cousin, her husband and the couple’s two daughters, who live near Izmit, in the middle of the devastated region.

“We have not been able to contact them,” Nalcioglu said, crying softly.

To help: Send tax-deductible contributions to ATA-SC Earthquake Relief Fund, c/o ATA-SC, 14250-C Culver Drive, Irvine, CA 92604.