RENSSELAER — On Monday night, around 30 members of Albany’s Turkish community gathered for prayer at the Albany Community Center in response to the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that destroyed buildings and killed thousands Monday in southwestern Turkey and neighboring Syria.
“We prayed for our country,” executive director Medet Onel said. “For about three hours we prayed for our nation and our country.”
Turkey’s emergency management agency said the total number of deaths in the country had passed 4,500, with some 26,000 people injured. Government-held areas of Syria reported over 800 deaths and 1,400 injuries; at least 900 were reported dead in the rebel-held northwest, with more than 2,300 injured. Among those dead or injured were friends, relatives and neighbors, Onel said.
Onel said the next steps for the community center — formerly the Turkish Cultural Center of Albany — are to raise funds for the relief effort. Donations are being made to the nonprofit Embrace Relief, he said. Other members with homes in Turkey are offering them to those in need.
Other relief efforts are underway in the Capital Region. Haider Khwaja, a board of trustees member at the Al Fatemah Center in Colonie, said the center plans to raise funds for earthquake relief. The center will first ask members for donations via email and at upcoming programs, but outside donors can reach the center on their website, he said.
A few members are from Turkey or Syria, but most are from the Indian subcontinent or Middle East, Khwaja said.
“Whenever there is a situation like this, and not only in Muslim countries … we come forward,” he said.
Onel said he was grateful to friends from other religious and community groups who’ve helped, and said they would be holding prayer programs with the interfaith community.
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