Situated on 5 different tectonic plates, Turkey is regularly hit by violent quakes. On Sunday October 23rd, the city of Van and its 400 000 inhabitants, as well as the nearby city of Ercis, suffered one of the most violent earthquakes ever registered in the country. The day after the disaster that literally erased several villages from the map, and destroyed the major part of telecommunication facilities, nearly 500 deaths and over 1 300 injured people were announced, not including the hundreds of people buried under the rubbles, or the thousands of homeless who had to sleep outdoors, in the already icy winter, because of the numerous aftershocks. The Red Crescent is the main humanitarian association present locally, and has already set up two temporary hospitals and mobilised thousands of doctors to help the victims.

23rd of october: Carrefour Turkey teams immediately contacted local authorities to evaluate emergency needs, mainly non-food products first of all. They strongly mobilised to provide a quick and efficient help to the victims.

24th of october: a nationwide donation campaign was put into place in all 27 hypermarkets, in order to raise awareness among employees and clients, to encourage them to participate in the emergency aid. Around 59 000€ of food and non food products were thus collected and distributed to the victims a week later.

25th of october: The donation campaign was extended to Carrefour Headquaters in Turkey. The first truck was sent in the morning, containing 76 boxes of blankets, bedsheets and warm clothing. In the evening, 3 additional trucks left for Van, with 66 palettes of goods of first emergency (water, milk, hygiene products, rice, oil...). The Carrefour Foundation confirmed its support to the emergency aid up to 193 398€.

26th of october: 3 new trucks were sent to Van, containing, among other things, 5 000 blankets offered by one of Carrefour suppliers. All of the products were given to the Red Crescent for redistribution.

As a result, 144 tonnes of goods were trasnported to the zone of the disaster. O the 9h of november, 60 000 persons were still living in temporary shelters, when a second hard quake of 5.7 on the Richter scake hit the region, lilling 20 more people.