Turkey Syria earthquake: Turkish man who lives in Leeds says 'my childhood memories are gone' after disaster

The 7.8 magnitude quake is the deadliest to hit Turkey since 1999, with the death toll now passing 5,000 and expected to rise.

Emergency aid and search teams from all over the world are travelling to help and Servet Ozdemir, 29, who lives in Leeds, but was born in Golbasi, a town in the Adiyaman province of Turkey, and moved to the UK in 2007 is fearing for his family’s safety.

The physicist, who works at the University of Leeds, said that many of his extended family still live in Golbasi, including his wife’s parents.

“My uncle’s building is tilted, it’s unusable right now, he doesn’t have a home,” he said.

“But the building right next to them. It just collapsed on to the floor… it was gone.

“My father-in-law, he owns a pharmacy. It’s destroyed completely. I don’t know when he will be able to run his business again.

“I can’t do my job right now. I’m not working, I’m just constantly trying to get help to these people, trying to assure them, trying to assure my wife, she’s very sad. Her parents have been impacted directly.

“Basically my childhood memories are gone right now, the town doesn’t remain any more and we have to rebuild it.”

Mr Ozdemir said he had been able to contact friends and family despite mobile networks struggling, and called for long-term aid to help the country recover.

“(People) can’t access their homes any more. They are basically gone,” he said.

“They (are) just left without anything, maybe with a coat at most. They need clothing, they need food, because even the bakeries in that town, they are destroyed. They can’t make food any more.

“We’ll need long-term help and a long-term plan, long-term efforts, and next time we build buildings there I don’t want to see them collapsing, basically.”

It comes as the search for survivors across Turkey and Syria has been impeded by the sub-zero temperatures and and close to 200 aftershocks, which made the search through unstable structures perilous.