Ali Çakaş wasn’t looking for a cat that morning in Defne, he was looking for survivors beneath a building that no longer existed. Nine days had passed since the ground shook in southeastern Turkey on February 6, 2023, and amid the dust he found something breathing: a white cat with black spots, so thin and frightened it could barely stand.
Cakas competes in mountain biking for Turkey’s national team and is also a firefighter in Mardin. That day he rescued five people and another cat that did return to its family. This one had no one to claim it.
So he decided to take it with him. The cat wouldn’t leave his side, and Ali ended up adopting it. He named it Enkaz, which means rubble in Turkish, as a reminder of where it all began. Since then the cat sleeps on his shoulder, follows him everywhere and became the fire station’s official mascot. Out of the absolute destruction came the companionship neither of them expected to find.