Kahramanmaraş ( Turkey ) - (AFP) - After the news from her aunt was interrupted, Tuba Yolcu went to the sports complex, where the bodies recovered from the ruins of her city, Kahramanmaraş, in southeastern Turkey, the epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake, were placed, hoping to find her body.

Here, the earth shook Monday for 75 seconds, which is a long period of time, leaving massive devastation and destruction.

"We heard that the authorities will not keep the bodies for a long time and will move them to another place for burial. I pray to God that I will find them," Tuba said anxiously.

Families search for their dead in modern morgues in southern Turkey, such as parking lots, playgrounds and gyms. The authorities have pledged to identify all the bodies and hand them over to their families.

"Every body will be handed over to their families," said the public prosecutor sent to reassure the bereaved families.

"Don't worry, we take blood samples from every unclaimed corpse," he declared.

So far, more than 20,000 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble in Turkey (the death toll is more than 25,000 with the Syrian victims).

In the gymnasium in Kahramanmaraş, families gather to look at bodies lying in bags or under blankets, hoping to find loved ones lost in the earthquake.

"We show the faces of the bodies to the relatives," a crime scene investigator who did not want to be named told AFP.

This gym is located along a vast field on the outskirts of town, where corpse trucks continually come to unload and leave.

"If the body remains unidentified, we take fingerprints and a dental sample to compare it with relatives," when they come, the investigator explained.

In this new cemetery, about two thousand bodies were counted, according to estimates, but new processions continue to arrive, carrying additional bodies.

Handwritten nameplates of the victims were placed above each hastily dug grave, some wrapped in a scarf so families could locate their loved ones in the vast expanse.

The unidentified bodies were placed separately. Investigators take samples from each, take photographs and take notes.

Yusef Sakman, a representative of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, said that the unidentified bodies are distributed according to the collapsed buildings where they were found, adding, "Thus, relatives can find them according to the address of the deceased."

For his part, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Friday that he hoped all the bodies would be identified. "We upload pictures of each of them in a special program in order to match them" with relatives, he added.

At the gym, Tuba Yolcu gave up hope and left, saying, "The official told me all the bodies have been identified." Then she went to her husband and told him, "Let's go back to the ruins"... Her aunt may still be there.