As the death toll rises in what is being called the worst earthquake to hit the region in the past 24 years, Oded Tadmor relates his own experience from a hotel room not far from the epicenter.
"I'm fine, but I might easily not have been," Tadmor told Radio 103FM. "It was just a little after four in the morning when I woke up and the entire room was shaking. Pieces of the walls were literally crumbling and falling to the floor. Everything glass was shattered. It was like a storm outside, with high winds, and I could hear screaming from outside. The emergency lighting wasn't functioning. I ran out to the hallway and everything was in ruins there too. I ran back to my room, grabbed my wallet and passport, and a coat too as it was freezing cold. My business partner was in the next room and I realized that he couldn't get out. The shifting of the walls made it impossible to open the door."
Tadmor added that, "There was dust and debris everywhere, along with shattered glass. All the windows had broken so the gales were coming in from outside." In an effort to save his business partner, "I went back up to the sixth floor and tried to break down the door. They got him out after three hours, and he was calm throughout, even though the ground was still shaking. The entire hotel shifted, in fact.
"Now, a few hours afterward, now that it's light, you can see how many buildings have collapsed. It's just a big pile of rubble in many places. Some of the roads shifted too, they look like waves. There are rescue teams all over the place. Five minutes ago, they managed to extract a women from the rubble, from a building that had entirely collapsed."
Tadmor added that despite all that has happened, he has no plans to return home for the time being. "I still have to complete my business here and we'll meet up somewhere else instead. I won't be returning to the hotel."
He also noted that the huge earthquake that rocked Istanbul 24 years ago did not have such a devastating impact, as "they're more professional there, more organized."