One minute Mr Muzaffer Yarla, a middle-aged father of four, was sitting on his balcony enjoying the early morning breeze on a humid August day, the next, the seven-storey apartment building in which he was living in an Istanbul shantytown collapsed like a pack of cards, trapping his wife, three children and daughter-in-law inside.
The balcony was ripped from the building, hurling Mr Yarla into the street.
Nearly comatose and strapped to a stretcher, he watched as workers raced against time to rescue an estimated 10 people trapped beneath the rubble. "How many dead family do I have? I fear I have many," he wept.
"Of course God is the only one who knows, but there is little hope," a police officer at the scene said, pointing to the flattened heap of concrete, twisted steel and well-worn carpets poking through.
A framed photograph of a pony-tailed schoolgirl fell intact from the jaws of a bulldozer.
Minutes later, the engines stalled after hitting a pair of bare feet, clearly lifeless. A silence followed before women struck up a loud wail as the news was whispered across the crowd waiting patiently behind police barriers.
"My Halil, my Halil. Is this the way to go?" screamed one of the women, her head wrapped in a brightly coloured headscarf. The close-knit local community is populated largely with poor migrants from the Black Sea region.
There was severe damage in some areas of Izmit, some 90km east of Istanbul, near the epicentre of the quake. Many locals fled the area and those who remained, their homes destroyed, were setting up tents.
Mr Fahrettin Duman, working beside a mechanical digger, struggled to pull fallen masonry away from an apartment block near his own house in Izmit.
"There are some eight people trapped in the staircase near the entrance, but even with this machine we can't reach them. There's no sign of life," Mr Duman said.
The efforts of rescue teams to reach many victims were slowed by collapsed buildings which blocked roads and by traffic jams throughout the area caused by fleeing Istanbul residents.
The force of the quake ripped out electric pylons and tore power cables apart, leaving the region without electricity. It also toppled the minarets of dozens of mosques.
In Istanbul, residents of another damaged building appeared to have been saved by a stroke of luck. Their apartment fell sideways, allowing them to survive in small alcoves of space.
Five-year-old Muhammed, the last occupant, screamed for his mother as a fireman carried him from the rubble. Neighbours had earlier retrieved his injured mother and sister from the tangled mess of steel and concrete, scattered with toys and belongings, that was once their home.
They broke into applause when the boy's feet emerged from within a hole in the side of the four-storey building.
Yesterday morning, hundreds of shaken people lined the city's streets and avenues seemingly preparing for a long wait, carrying books and picnic baskets. Radio broadcasts warned the public to stay away from damaged buildings.
In the poor Istanbul district of Tuzla, residents waited nervously for news of friends and relatives trapped in collapsed apartment blocks.