A Cumbrian restaurant owner is planning to go to Turkey as soon as possible to help with the relief effort following the huge earthquakes that hit the country.
Mehmet Durmuş, 51, who runs Aspava in Cockermouth with his wife Tracy, said his home town had been hit really hard by the earthquake on Monday and its aftershocks.
The death toll stands at over 19,000 in Turkey and Syria – and is continually rising as rescue efforts go on. It was the worst natural disaster in the region for over a century.
Mehmet, who has lived in Cumbria for 20 years, said the majority of his family were still in Turkey and he was struggling to make contact due to the situation.
He said: “The town where I was born and the villages and cities around have been destroyed and people are suffering and we just want to help them as much as we can.
“All my family is there in Turkey except for my dad and sister who came to visit us here so they’re safe, but all the rest of my family are there. They’ve just taken one of my cousins out from under the rubble but apart hearing some things I haven’t talked to them properly at all yet. There’s no electricity so we are struggling to contact them.”
“The money I’m raising I’m going to actually go out there with that money and make sure it’s going to the right people. I was planning to go straight away but my uncle said there was no way I’d be able to get there with all the closed and blocked roads.
“So for now I’m just raising as much money as I can to support everyone from here.”
He has so far raised £4,300 on his online page.
Mehmet added: “From the bottom of my heart I want to thank everyone for donating in this crisis, we’ve all got to pull together and try and help and that’s what I’m hoping to do.
“I want to raise as much as I can to take over to help family and friends that have lost everything, including loved ones to provide anything they need from water, blankets and building materials just to help in any way I can.”
