Organized chaos is the order of the day at this Istanbul aid collection and distribution center.
A CNN team saw volunteers darting in and out of the alleys of boxes and household goods in the Topbaş Performance and Art Center in the Yenikapi district of Turkey’s biggest city, where wheelbarrows were stacked high with nappies and cakes.
Everything from toilet paper to excavators have been channeled through the center after it transformed into a donations hub two days ago, hours after the earthquake rocked southern Turkey and northwest Syria on Monday. Contributions have poured in from major firms and individuals alike, with a focus on the essentials of survival: food, water and clothing.
The disaster zone is at the other end of Turkey from Istanbul, but the urgency at the center here is palpable.
Snow is beginning to settle on the car park outside, where 53 cargo trucks have departed for the southern Hatay province since Monday. Regular arrivals of families bring in portable heaters, carpets and even baby strollers, the everyday essentials of life ripped away from their compatriots by the earthquake.
The neon jackets of the council workers glint among the masses of some 2,000 volunteers crowding the tables, where volunteers process donations from across the city.
“It’s a horrible situation but it also gives hope,” Esra Huri Bulduk, a city council aid coordinator, told CNN.
“The volunteers are working so hard,” she said of the locals staffing the center, which is running 24/7.
“We have seen mothers bringing baby food they bought for their child, to donate,” Bulduk added.
Families told us, ‘how can they only feed their own child whilst other children are not fed?’ (The) people of Istanbul are ready to show solidarity and help one another.”
Smaller trucks ferry goods in and out of the three cavernous hangers that make up the exhibition center; some 5,000 sets of clothes for men, women and children have been shipped out, alongside nearly 3,000 hygiene kits and 10,000 food packets.
Three excavators, 90 generators and 26 pieces of construction machinery have also been shipped out for the 12-hour drive to the disaster zone.
