Last year on February 6, a devastating earthquake shook southern Turkeykilling over 53,000 mothers, daughters, fathers and sons. A year and a half later, hundreds of thousands of people are still victims of the 7.8 magnitude monster that tore their world to the ground.

My grandfather and I drove from our family’s hometown of Anamur across the country to Hatay, a province where the population has shrunk from 1.7 million to just 250,000. Exiting the highway into the city, more and more piles of rubble gradually appeared.

What were once people’s homes were now huge piles of concrete and metal. It was such devastation that it almost didn’t seem real, it looked like a movie set. But it was right before our eyes. The streets where children played, the benches where teenagers talked and laughed, the kitchens where grandmothers lovingly cooked for their families are gone forever.

I was curious when I started seeing hundreds of rows of white shipping containers – I soon realized that these were the temporary homes. More than 600,000 people still live in these little boxes. Whitewashed, dystopian camps that seemed to never end. I continued driving but stopped when I saw a small town under a blue tarp “roof”.

About 20 families lived there, all their lives between four hanging sheets.

I spoke to a girl, Nihal, who was 16 years old and dreamed of coming to England. She just exists, she said, since she moved into the barely three square meter space with her mother, aunt and grandmother.

Her mother, Yeter, told me how their never-ending nightmare began when they lived in Antakya.

“We were in the house and the ceiling collapsed on us. It kept falling, hitting us and hitting us, one after another. I couldn’t sit still, but I couldn’t get out. From beginning to end I lived it.

“I was cut here,” she said, showing her face. “My daughter’s head was cut off.”

“We ran to the door but we couldn’t open it,” she said. “Our neighbors broke it down to get us out. That’s how we managed to escape. An incredible downpour began. It was raining so hard and it was pitch black.”

Yeter watched the buildings collapse around her.

“It was so bad, everyone was screaming. Tall buildings had collapsed to the ground. Some people died, others were injured. They were screaming “help me, save me” but it couldn’t be helped. He could not approach the building because it might collapse.

“It was so cold and wet. The ground was still shaking. We reached a flat ground. The signal went out and our phones didn’t work, we couldn’t reach anyone.

“One begins to think of their relatives. I waited there for daylight, but it never came. It felt like forever. He came around 10am the next day and once we had the light we went to find our relatives.

“They were under the rubble.” Yeter began to cry.

“I lost them.”

Her sister put her arm around her.

They received a message from a relative saying “I’m under the rubble, please come and save me”, but it didn’t reach them until it was too late.

Two of Yeter’s nieces died with their father, her brother. One of the nieces survived, but had to have her arm and legs amputated.

“If I got the message earlier, maybe it would have legs,” Yeter said.

Plain rice and beans is all they ate every day for a year and a half, and their living conditions are “abhorrent”. Their future is bleak and hopeless.

Yeter’s family, like others who still live there, say money is tight and they can’t even find bottled water easily, but they can’t bring themselves to leave the place they still call home.

In Turkey, 37,066 buildings collapsed and more than 200,000 were badly damaged. Reconstruction will take years, and people need money, supplies and psychological help – many of them have never found their loved ones and cannot grieve.

The victims of the disaster are still in need of help and donations, which can be made using the links below: