OLDS — A local business has set up a GoFundMe page for an employee who has lost some relatives and found others badly injured, due to the earthquake in Turkey and northern Syria.
On Feb. 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria at about 4:17 a.m. local time. A huge aftershock occurred shortly afterward, followed by about 2,100 smaller after shocks.
As a result, scores of buildings have collapsed, killing, injuring and trapping thousands of people.
Many people in the Turkish and Syria diaspora have been frantically trying to contact and help loved ones affected.
Former Didsbury resident Mohammad Ajmal Nikzad is one such person.
Nikzad and some family now live in Calgary.
He commutes to Olds to install flooring for A Gallery Of Floors and has worked for the company for about 10 years.
Nikzad left Calgary on Feb. 6 to search for other members his family.
He found the bodies of his mother Najya and his 23-year-old sister Sayeda Hashimi in one of the many demolished buildings.
His brother is in a hospital in Ankara. Both his legs were amputated.
Another sister, Sajia, suffered badly. Her kidneys failed, she has lung damage, and her left leg was amputated.
She remains in a hospital in Kayseri, about four hours away from her brother, leaving Nikzad struggling to help both of them as best he can, despite the fact they’re so far from each other.
Staff at A Gallery of Floors were so moved by what’s happened to Nikzad’s family and his desperate efforts to help them that they decided to set up a GoFundMe page for him with a goal of raising $50,000.
The idea is to raise money to help cover medical and other expenses.
“I know we’ll be doing a donation here of course and we’re going to let people in our industry know what’s happened to one of our own and see what people in our industry will do to help him and his family right now,” said Shaun Waite, who runs A Gallery Of Floors.
"I can't imagine the heartbreak he’s going through,” he said.
Employee Heather Noel voiced a similar feeling.
“We’re all pretty close,” she said, adding they’ve been in communication frequently with Nikzad via Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
“Last Monday he left to go find his family. He didn’t come to work that day.
“I just touched base with him to see if he’s OK with us starting a GoFundMe (page) and he said he lost his sister, talked about his other sister.”
Waite said although Nikzad and his family in Alberta weren’t in Didsbury for very long, they had an impact on the community.
“They were great for the community,” he said. “They coached soccer with the kids, played soccer.
“We were kind of keeping an eye on him and trying to get news and we were very hopeful that they would be found and everything would turn out (OK), but of course, it’s not turning out that way. It’s very, very, very bad there.”
The family used to live in Afghanistan but moved to Turkey after Nikzad’s father was killed and his mother, a principal at a high school, received death threats.
