Recovery efforts intensify in Turkey’s earthquake zone

ADIYAMAN, Turkey — With anger running high in Turkey on Saturday over the government’s slow response to Monday’s devastating earthquake and what critics say is shoddy construction As a result, the government began detaining construction contractors around the country, whom it blamed for several house collapses that helped push the death toll above 21,000.

More than 100 people have been detained across 10 provinces affected by the quake, the state-run Anadolu News Agency reported on Saturday, as Turkey’s Justice Ministry ordered officials in those provinces to establish “Earthquake Crime Investigation Unit”. It also directs them to appoint prosecutors to bring criminal charges against all “builders and persons responsible” for the collapse of buildings that do not meet current rules, launched after a similar disaster in 1999.

Across the quake zone, residents expressed outrage at what they said were corrupt builders who cut corners for profit and the government’s “amnesty” for builders. building apartment blocks that don’t meet the new rules.

In Antakya’s Saraykint neighborhood, residents pointed to poor workmanship in a newly built luxury building of 14 floors, with about 90 apartments, that collapsed on its own.

“Concrete is like sand,” said one man, who did not want to be named, as he stood near the building as he watched rescuers work. “It was built so quickly.”

Among those arrested on Saturday was Mehmet Ertan Akay, the builder of a collapsed complex in the devastated city of Gaziantep, who was charged with involuntary manslaughter and building violations. public, a Turkish news agency reported. The Gaziantep prosecutor’s office said it issued the arrest warrant after examining the evidence collected from the rubble of the complex he built.

Mehmet Yasar Coskun, the builder of a 12-story building in Hatay province with 250 apartments that was completely demolished, was detained Friday at an airport in Istanbul while trying to board a flight to Montenegro. Dozens of people are believed to have died when the building collapsed.

According to the Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus government, two construction workers of a 14-story building that collapsed in Adana, believed to have fled Turkey shortly after the earthquake, have been arrested in Northern Cyprus.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, visiting Diyarbakir province on Saturday, defended the government’s action, saying the earthquake was “three times bigger and more destructive than the 1999 earthquake, the greatest disaster in the recent memory of our country.” While acknowledging that the official response has been slow, he said the country was unprepared for such a large earthquake.

Mr. Erdogan, who faces a tough election battle in May, calling for unity, said: “Unfortunately some political parties and NGOs still seek to attack in an immoral, shameless way.” He vowed to punish looters and said that all Turkish universities would switch to online learning so survivors could temporarily live in state-run dormitories.

Although Turkey adopted building rules after the 1999 earthquake, residents say they are often not applied because contractors can make more money when they cut corners: mix concrete cardboard and use cheaper metal bars for pillars, among other things.

Mesut Koparal, a car dealer whose mother was killed in the earthquake, is furious with the authorities for not doing more to ensure the buildings are well built.

“The state must be held accountable,” he said. “If you have a small amount of debt, the state will chase you and find you, but they don’t check the buildings.”

“I’m not an engineer, I’m not a contractor,” he added. “How can I know?”

His neighbor, Mehmet Celik, 38, a middle school teacher, said the big problem was asking for amnesty for buildings that weren’t built to the rules, which the government sometimes enacts to legalize effectively such buildings. It’s good politics, he said, because nobody wants a building or apartment they’ve paid for to be condemned. But then the building is vulnerable when an earthquake occurs.

In Adiyaman City, the main road is like a construction site that stretches from block to block. But instead of building buildings, teams of workers, cranes, bulldozers and excavators are digging through the rubble of houses that have collapsed.

Residents said initial aid and rescue teams were slow to arrive after Monday’s powerful earthquake, which killed more than 21,000 people in Turkey and nearly 4,000 in neighboring Syria. Teams are currently packing the main road.

Rescuers, miners and soldiers in uniform stood atop the rubble and rested on the grassy divider, warmed by smoke-smothering wood fires and sipping lentil soup cooked in the oven. volunteer kitchens.

Adiyaman was badly damaged, with several buildings on every block along its main street now collapsed. Many other houses have cracked windows and walls, and appear to be uninhabited.

Prepared foods, diapers and baby formula are distributed at various distribution points. In an empty lot, volunteers set up an open-air pharmacy to listen to residents’ complaints and review their medical records before taking the appropriate pills or syrup from the carts. folding table behind them.

At a medical tent next door, doctors give free consultations to anyone who walks in. The most common complaints were injuries from broken glass or falling bricks, respiratory illness aggravated by cold weather, and diarrhea caused by a lack of drinking water for the mass homeless. Dr Firat Erkmen, head of a medical association in Sanliurfa that sent a volunteer delegation, said.

A million or more people in the affected area are believed to have no shelter during the cold winter, as local and foreign aid workers scramble to bring in food, UN officials said. , clean water and temporary housing to the affected areas, especially in northwestern Syria. which had largely been cut off from outside aid because of political obstacles stemming from the 12-year civil war.

The earthquake left widespread devastation across southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, both in the last opposition-held territory in northwestern Syria and in government-held territories. , especially Aleppo.

Humanitarian aid has been politicized for a long time in a divided Syria, with President Bashar al-Assad insisting that aid go through the central government, while most donors Western aid agencies want to deliver aid directly to the northwestern part of the country held by Turkey. – support opposition forces.

Only one border crossing from Turkey into northwest Syria, Bab al-Hawa, has been authorized by the United Nations Security Council to deliver aid, where Russia, which backs Mr. refuse to allow other border gates to operate. There are reports that the Syrian Red Crescent has been allowed to send 14 aid trucks across the border to Idlib, along with UN officials, but more aid is needed.

The death toll in Syria is expected to rise dramatically over the next few days, as disorganized rescue efforts intensify.

Geir O. Pedersen, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, said after a meeting of the humanitarian task force in Geneva: “The emergency response must not be politicized. He added: “Our two immediate requirements are: access and resources.

While aid poured into Turkey, the situation in Syria was more chaotic and dire. Mr. Pedersen is just one of a number of UN officials expected to visit the country. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization, arrived in Aleppo on Saturday, and the UN aid director, Martin Griffiths, is in Turkey and hopes to head to Syria, where Mr. al-Assad toured devastated areas and blamed the West for hiding from its government.

Griffiths acknowledged the particular difficulties in getting aid to Syria and said he plans to put more pressure on the Assad regime to open two other crossings. “It’s life and death,” he said, warning that the death toll could double.

A Syrian volunteer, Mohamed al-Shibli, said on Saturday that the Syrian White Helmets rescue team is currently only recovering the dead. “Yesterday and today we found no cases alive,” he said.

Mr. al-Assad’s opponents say he is using the crisis to try to lift sanctions and argue that most aid to Syria funded by Europe and the United States goes through agencies. of the United Nations and their local counterparts are based in the capital. They say Syria routinely blocks international aid to opposition-held areas in the north and siphons off supplies to the rest of the country.

In contrast, Mr. al-Assad accused the West of playing political games. “The West prioritizes politics over the humanitarian situation,” al-Assad said Friday while visiting the devastated Masharqa neighborhood in Aleppo. “It’s natural for them to politicize the situation, but without humanitarianism, both now and in the past.”

On Thursday, the US State Department refused to lift sanctions on Syria, saying the policy did not hinder humanitarian aid efforts. However, the Treasury Department issued a six-month sanction waiver for all transactions related to the provision of disaster relief to Syria.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told reporters overnight that rescue operations continued in Turkey, where 67 people have been pulled from the rubble in the past 24 hours. He said that about 80,000 people are being treated in hospitals, while 1.05 million people who have lost their homes due to the earthquake are sheltering in temporary shelters.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency on Saturday said nearly 93,000 survivors had been evacuated from the quake zone.

While Turkish officials have encouraged families to evacuate, many have been thwarted. Melek Goclu said the Goclu family had heard about a bus to evacuate people, but when they came to pick it up it was cancelled. Her husband had booked plane tickets, but they were also cancelled.

“We just wanted to leave,” she said, “but we couldn’t find a way.”

Ben Hubbard And Safak Timur report from Adiyaman, Turkey; Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Raja Abdulrahim from Antakya, Turkey; And Steven Erlanger from Brussels. Gulsin Harman contribution reports from Istanbul, and Farah Mohamed from London.