During the 2019 election campaign, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey praised the law his political party pushed for by allowing property owners to be forgiven for construction violations. build without having their buildings included in the rule.
This move is risky in Turkey, a land of bugs earthquake-prone has tightened similar codes to make buildings more vibration-resistant.
But it attracted voters. At protests in Hatay, Kahramanmaras and Malatya provinces, Mr Erdogan said the law had “solved the problems” of more than 438,000 property owners.
Now later Great earthquake last weekthose areas were covered with toppled buildings that buried their inhabitants when they collapsed.
The death toll in southern Turkey and northern Syria passed 33,000 on Sunday, with survivors and construction experts saying poor construction most likely exacerbated the scale of the destruction. destruction of the earthquake, as well as the number of deaths.
The Turkish government has responded by arresting construction contractors involved in the collapsed buildings and the Justice Ministry has set up earthquake crime investigation offices across the affected area.
But construction experts say the builders could not complete their project without the approval of a range of officials, who have so far escaped scrutiny for possibly signing off. sub works.
Taner Yuzgec, former president of the Civil Engineering Department, a professional organization, said: “Rounding up contractors was a response to public outcry. “The real culprit is the current government, and previous governments have kept the system in place.”
During recent visits to the affected area to visit victims, Mr. Erdogan emphasized the severity of the quake, calling Saturday “the biggest disaster in the country’s recent memory” we”.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6 caused widespread devastation in 10 provinces in southern Turkey as well as northern Syria, with the death toll rising above 29,000 in Turkey and over 3,500 in Syria on Sunday – a combined number that makes the earthquake one of the deadliest earthquakes of the century natural disaster. More than a million people have become homeless in Turkey, and many more lack shelter in Syria.
Construction was once a driving force in Mr. Erdogan’s economic development policy. During his two decades as president and prime minister, he made the vast construction of roads, bridges, shopping centers and housing for Turkey’s 80 million people a pillar of economic growth.
Many of the country’s top construction tycoons have close ties to him or his ruling Justice and Development Party.
But the growth boom has raised questions about whether some buildings are being completed too quickly to be done well, and Mr. Erdogan’s political opposition has taken advantage of construction amnesty orders. Erdogan’s government has adopted to try to undermine him ahead of important presidential and parliamentary elections. scheduled for May 14.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of Turkey’s largest opposition party and likely presidential candidate, said: “They turn houses into graves for the people who live in them. “One should ask, do they listen to their conscience while issuing a constructive amnesty?”
So far, the government has only gone after builders.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters on Sunday that 134 people have been subjected to legal proceedings related to collapsed buildings; 10 of them were arrested and 7 others were banned from going abroad.
“We will follow the case meticulously until the end of the necessary judicial process, especially for the damaged buildings,” Vice President Fuat Oktay told reporters in the capital Ankara. heavy and buildings causing casualties”.
Two contractors responsible for collapsed buildings in the city of Adiyaman, Yavuz Karakus and Sevilay Karakus, were detained on Sunday at Istanbul Airport, state media reported. They were carrying more than $17,000 in cash and were planning to fly to the country of Georgia.
“My conscience is clear,” Mr Karakus told reporters after his arrest. “I built 44 buildings; Only four people have collapsed.
The new arrests follow Saturday’s arrest of prominent contractors: Mehmet Ertan Akay, who built a collapsed complex in the city of Gaziantep; two builders of a 14-story building in Adana collapsed; and Mehmet Yasar Coskun, who built a 12-story apartment tower in Hatay province that was demolished.
Mr Coskun told prosecutors his building had been duly licensed and audited by local and state authorities, and his attorney argued he was detained to appease public anger. they.
Turkey suffered a powerful earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people and since then it has upgraded building codes to prepare for future earthquakes.
But construction experts say the quake has made it clear that regulations are sometimes violated.
Mr. Yuzgec, former chairman of the Civil Engineering Department, said he saw many signs of poor construction during his five-day visit to the quake zone.
“In all the collapsed buildings, I could clearly see all the technical issues related to the materials used, the assessment of the ground and the quality of the workers,” he said.
Bugra Gokce, an urban planner and senior city official for the city of Istanbul, said in an interview that focusing on contractors had overlooked others who might not have fulfilled their duties. .
“This is a systemic problem,” he said.
Ali Ozgunduz, a former state prosecutor who helped investigate buildings that collapsed after the 1999 earthquake, says damage to multiple floors has allowed bad buildings to slip through: local officials Local authorities were ignored when issuing permits and inspectors did not scrutinize workplace sites.
“As long as those people are not held accountable, these things will continue to happen,” he said.
But property owners also play a role, he added, by asking for amnesty and supporting politicians enacting them.
“Society should say, ‘I need a place to live; I don’t need a grave,’” he said.
The earthquake destroyed thousands of buildings and damaged infrastructure on both sides of the border, but while aid to Turkey was pouring in from around the world, there was almost no aid. reached northern Syria due to political divisions on the ground after more than 12 years of civil war.
The top UN aid official said on Sunday that aid efforts so far had “failed with the people of northwestern Syria”, calling the quake “the worst event yet”. ” in the region for a century.
“They really feel left out,” said official Martin Griffiths, wrote on Twitter from the Turkish-Syrian border. “Searching for international help has not yet come.”
He praised the Turkish government’s response, saying that victims of natural disasters were always disappointed by early relief efforts.
The Turkish government has mobilized a massive aid effort, with tens of thousands of rescuers working with volunteers from around the world to dig through rubble to find bodies and sometimes are survivors. The government has also set up tent cities for residents whose homes have been destroyed and is distributing food, medicine and other items.
But aid efforts in Syria are seriously lagging. The earthquake caused heavy damage in areas controlled by the government of President Bashar al-Assad and in lands controlled by anti-government rebels backed by Turkey.
Mr. al-Assad, considered by much of the world to be deposed because of his military’s brutality in the civil war, has sought to send all aid through his government. Critics say that aid is then directed to his loyalists.
Only one border crossing into rebel-controlled areas, Bab al-Hawa, has been authorized by the United Nations to transport aid shipments, but it has yet to become a major channel. The Syrian Red Crescent was allowed to send 14 trucks from government-controlled areas into rebel-controlled Idlib province, but on Sunday the convoy appeared to be tied up. Even if it goes, the goods will be very small compared to the demand.
While most search efforts in Turkey’s hard-hit cities on Sunday focused on getting the bodies out, rescues are unlikely to come to fruition.
In Hatay province, a team from Romania pulled a 35-year-old man alive from the rubble 149 hours after the earthquake, CNN Turk reported.
“His health is good; he’s talking,” one of the rescuers told the broadcaster. “He was saying, ‘Get me out of here quick. I have claustrophobia.’”
In another rescue televised live on HaberTurk television, a six-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble in Adiyaman city 151 hours after the quake.
