For years, brothers Namik and Cengiz Aydogdu lived 30 metres apart on the same street in the coastal town of Yalova in the north-west of Turkey.
Both married with two children, they were in and out of each other's apartments every day. Their children played together, the brothers were on the same football team and the families were planning a joint holiday in the south of the country.
But the earthquake that shattered their lives a week ago dealt them quite different hands. Namik woke to the tremors, gathered his family about him and made for the street. His building shook but was undamaged.
Cengiz, however, perished instantly with his wife and eight-year-old son. "The building collapsed in the first second. The little boy didn't even have time to wake up. His eyes were shut tight when we found him in the wreckage the next day," says Namik.
Twelve hours after the quake, he found his brother's eight-month-old baby alive in the debris, and she has now become a part of his family. There followed the days of watching and waiting, as he prodded the heap of rubble for signs of life. Yesterday, though, as he pushed a set of worry beads through his fingers in the local tea-house, hope had given way to anger.
"This wasn't an accident. My house, which was old, was fine, yet my brother's collapsed immediately. There must be justice for what has happened."
"The justice of the street," chimes in one of his tea-sipping colleagues. "Yes, we will have our own justice ready for the man who is responsible for this," says Namik.
Namik doesn't have the courts in mind when he says this but he has engaged a lawyer anyway. So have thousands of Turks who lost relatives in the disaster and now want redress from those who put up the buildings which collapsed like houses of cards when the earthquake hit.
The thirst for revenge is everywhere, from the newspaper headlines screaming "Murderers!" to the pointed accusation by the homeless that government officials colluded in the scams that produced unsafe buildings.
The heated talk of vendettas and beatings will probably die with time, but the anger is unmistakable. As public outrage grows, the developers who stand accused have, understandably, made them selves scarce. Some have left the country; another apologised publicly at the weekend, without accepting any responsibility.
Namik spent the morning looking for a police officer to go to the place where his brother's apartment once stood. He wants officials to collect evidence that will show the building was poorly constructed.
However, the police were busy maintaining order in the town, they said. Since the earthquake, the courts have been closed and justice is dispensed by the army. Not that there are any problems, even with the thousands of grief-stricken homeless camped by the Sea of Marmara.
In fact, the evidence is fast disappearing, in the backs of trucks which are taking away the piles of rubble for disposal in the sea. The trucks in fact have been provided by the very developers who are under suspicion, leading one Turkish newspaper to claim they are doing away with evidence of foul play in the construction process.
The authorities have tried to deflect criticism by claiming that the reason so many buildings collapsed was not because they were badly built, but because the ground upon which they were erected was unsuitable. That excuse raises at least as many questions as it answers.
In Yalova, for example, the Mesa-1 and Mesa-2 apartment blocks collapsed in the quake, killing 70 people. Both were built in a swampy area in 1986, in defiance of massive protests.
Permission to build the blocks was given by the then mayor of Yalova, Cengiz Kocal, according to the Turkish daily Milliyet. And who built the two blocks? Kocal's cousin Metin Kocal, who was head of the local branch of the architects' association.
Yalova was once a small seaside town, in the days when it was possible to swim in the Sea of Marmara. Retired people and emigrants returning from Germany invested their nest eggs in a small apartment here, out of the bustle of Istanbul but not too far from the big city.
One of the main developers used to advertise on the backs of the tickets issued on the ferries that ply across the now oily sludge of the waters between here and Istanbul. "Why wait for the home of your dreams when you can have it now," said the chubby figure in the advertisement.
He and other developers built high and they top-loaded their buildings; apartments full of furniture were built on top of high-ceiling ground-floor shops.
As profits increased, the number of floors crept up; no building was too high when there was money to be made. The cement grew more watery, the steel rods weaker and the walls thinner.
When the main fault of the quake ripped through Yalova, these buildings - and the dreams of their occupants - came crashing down.
Namik works as a welder and mechanic and wonders why it is that "new" has come to mean "shoddy".
"I used to have a bus, a 1963 model. When I tried to cut the chassis, I couldn't. But the steel they use now is not like this, and it's the same with new buildings, all poor quality."
"I have learned the most expensive mistake, but it is too late," he says.