A barber working in Wellington High Street has told how the earthquake in Turkey has devastated the city where his relatives live.
The owner of the barbershop, Yasar Eren, is from the city of Adiyaman in South East Turkey, which is said to have been 'left in ruins.'
Yasar's parents moved away from the city three years ago, but he told the Wellington Weekly News he has many cousins, uncles, aunties and other relatives still living there.
Yasar said: "I spoke to my cousin, she said grandma’s house is broken, my uncle, my auntie everyone’s house is broken. I just want to try to do something to help because they said to me we need medicine, we need water, we need food."
Speaking about the extent of the destruction, and what Yasar saw as government inaction, he said: "Can you imagine it has been over 11 days and my town still more than 50% of the people are still under houses.
"My friend said to me ‘I walked through town to see what is going on and everywhere it smells like dead people.’ The Government don’t care about the Kurdish part."
"Two or three days ago there was a cholera outbreak. They said ‘don’t drink tap water’. My friends said ‘If we don’t drink tap water what are we going to drink? We are going to be dead.’"
Yasar isn't accepting tips for his barbering services, instead he says, they're being deposited in the store's collection box.
He said: "Even £1 can help for lots of things. I’m not taking any tips, however much people give me - I put there."
Tens of thousands of people are confirmed dead across Turkey and neighbouring Syria following several earthquakes on Monday February 6.
The first earthquake registered as 7.8 on the Richter scale, and broke out across 100km along a fault line.
Prof Joanna Faure Walker, head of the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction at University College London, told the BBC: "Of the deadliest earthquakes in any given year, only two in the last 10 years have been of equivalent magnitude, and four in the previous 10 years."
The region had not seen a major earthquake in 200 years, and the recent earthquake is said to have come without warning.
Tens of thousands of people are reported to have died in the series of earthquakes which flattened buildings across large areas of Turkey and Syria over a week ago.
A large international relief effort is under way to support victims of the disaster and an appeal for funds has been set up by the Disasters Emergency Committee.