Devastated by disaster

By the end of the day on Monday, the government of Turkiye had declared seven days of mourning. At that time, people were still being pulled from the rubble of not one but two major earthquakes — the first occurring at 4:17 a.m. local time — and measuring 7.8 and 7.5 in magnitude. Either one could be among the 20 worst earthquakes ever recorded. Even from afar, it is hard not to be shaken by the sheer scale of a catastrophe such as this one. Running search-and-rescue services in just one city is difficult enough; the effort required to do so in 10 cities seems nearly impossible. Add to that the fact that there was not one earthquake but two of them, and one cannot but be aghast. Moreover, aftershocks are certain to occur for days and weeks ahead.

When all is said and done, the death toll will likely be in the tens of thousands, not least because the earthquake happened at a time when most people were in their homes and asleep. The time for Fajr prayers in southern Turkiye is not until around 6 a.m. so there was some time to go before people awoke for them. CCTV camera footage which caught the event shows the earth shaking with terrific violence, buildings collapsing and enormous cracks appearing in the midst of roads.

The area of eastern Turkiye has been the site of human habitation since the earliest days of humankind. In the southern city of Gaziantep, Gaziantep castle began as an observation point as far back as the 15th or

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16th CE under the Anatolian people known as the Hittites. Fortified during the Roman Empire, it was expanded by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian around 527 AD. The castle, which looked down at the city from its position on a high promontory at the centre, was all but destroyed in Monday’s earthquake. According to reports, some of its bastions collapsed and chunks of it were flung into the road below. The iron railings around the court were also damaged and scattered on the pavement. Preserved as a historic site, the castle housed a museum in the recent past.

What criteria are being applied to the fast-proliferating high-rises all over Pakistan to make them earthquakeresistant?

The Anatolian region where the earthquake struck is particularly susceptible to earthquakes, because the Anatolian plate sits between three major tectonic plates — the African, Arabian and Eurasian. Earthquakes have been recorded here since antiquity. The recent earthquake and the aftershocks occurred along or in the vicinity of the East Anatolian Fault Zone with the Anatolian plate in some places moving past the Arabian plate by nearly three metres. This caused the earthquake to be violent and catastrophic.

Pakistan is no stranger to similar disasters, given that the Himalayas to its north are ‘young’ mountains with continuing seismic activity. Watching the horrific footage of build- ings collapsing in Turkiye brought to mind the terrible collapse of Islamabad’s Margalla Towers in the earthquake that struck Pakistan in 2005. As late as October 2017, survivors of the collapse — which killed over 70 people — were complaining about how the 1,600-page report produced by the prime minister’s fact-finding commission had not been made public, which prevented responsibility for the disaster from being fixed. Iftikhar Chaudhry, a survivor, was reported as saying that the residential high-rise — among the capital’s first — was originally supposed to be five storeys high but that two storeys were added later. Meanwhile, the instructions of the chief justice of the Supreme Court at the time had been that buildings in the capital should be constructed with the capability of withstanding an earthquake of 9.0 magnitude. It can safely be assumed that post 2005, construction in the capital does not meet this requirement. Many innocent citizens were likely saved by the fact that there were not that many high-rises at the time. The greed and graft and lack of oversight in the corridors of power that has prevented the government report on the Margalla Towers incident from being made public, guarantees that the same carelessness has been at play even after the earthquake. The total death toll in Pakistan in 2005 was over 75,000 people with 100,000 injured. It is likely that the Turkish earthquake, given it is spread over such a large geographical area and that a good bit of it was densely populated, will be greater than even this. Luckily, Turkiye seems to have a better emergency response system than Pakistan and much of it has already been put into motion. Aid from the international community — something Turkiye does not usually accept — is also being urgently deployed, particularly from countries like Japan and others that have expertise in rescue operations. Across the border in war-ravaged Syria, the lack of information signals that the situation is likely even worse than that in Turkiye.

Pakistanis should ask their government about the measures that have been put in place to protect them if such an earthquake strikes the country again. How many government and other public buildings are being constructed according to building codes that makes them earthquakeresistant? Even more crucially, what criteria are being applied to the fast-proliferating high-rises all over Pakistan? The situation in Turkiye is heart-shattering, the suffering unimaginable. Earthquakes cannot be prevented but the truth can be told and questions asked. In Pakistan, the time to do that is right now.

Courtesy By: Rafia Zakaria

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy. What do you think?

Laysa Lil Insana illa ma’ sa’aa That man can have nothing but what he strives for.

Turkey-Syria earthquake news: Death toll tops 15,000

The death toll from the Turkey-Syria earthquakes has risen to more than 15,000.

At least 12,391 people have died in Turkey, according to officials, while at least 2,992 have been killed in Syria. Hopes of finding survivors are quickly fading and residents of southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria are criticising what they call slow search and rescue efforts.

Source:aljazeera.com

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meanwhile conceded “shortcomings” in his government’s response as he visited some of the worst affected areas in southern Turkey.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the especially hard-hit Hatay province, where more than 3,300 people died and entire neighbourhoods were destroyed. Residents there have criticized the government’s response, saying rescuers were slow to arrive. Erdogan, who faces a tough battle for reelection in May, acknowledged “shortcomings” in the response to Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake but said the winter weather had been a factor. The earthquake destroyed the runway in Hatay’s airport, further disrupting the response. ”It is

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not possible to be prepared for such a disaster,” Erdogan said. “We will not leave any of our citizens uncared for.” He also hit back at critics, saying “dishonourable people” were spreading “lies and slander” about the government’s response. Turkish authorities say they are targeting disinformation, and an internet monitoring group said access to Twitter was restricted despite it being used by survivors to alert rescuers. Search teams from more than two dozen countries have joined tens of thousands of local emergency personnel in Syria and Turkiye. But the scale of destruction from the quake and its powerful aftershocks was so immense and spread over such a wide area -- including a region isolated by Syria’s ongoing civil war -- that many people were still awaiting help. Experts said the survival window for those trapped under the rubble or otherwise unable to obtain basic necessities was closing rapidly. At the same time, they said it was too soon to abandon hope. “The first 72 hours are considered to be critical,” said Steven Godby, a natural hazards expert at Nottingham Trent University in England. “The survival ratio on average within 24 hours is 74%, after 72 hours it is 22% and by the fifth day it is 6%.” GAZIANTEP, TURKIYE - With hope of finding survivors fading, stretched rescue teams in Turkiye and Syria searched Wednesday for signs of life in the rubble of thousands of buildings toppled by the world’s deadliest earthquake in more than a decade. Source:dawn.com

‘Smell of death everywhere’

as Syrian rescuers plead for suppliescounts earthquake The Syrian Civil Defence group is calling for additional search and rescue equipment, describing the situation in rebel-held northwestern Syria as “tragic” and permeated with “the smell of death”.“The situation is tragic in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, hundreds of families are still under the rubble,” volunteer Asim AlYahya said, according to a tweet from the group, who are also known as the White Helmets. As rescue efforts cross the 72-hour mark, “there is a great shortage of search and rescue equipment,” he added.

Source:aljazeera.com

Funeral held for Pakistan ex-president Musharraf

Pakistan’s divisive former military ruler Pervez Musharraf was buried on Tuesday in a muted funeral that was never officially announced. The country’s serving army chief, the prime minister and the president all stayed away from the event, with media blocked from covering it and local television not airing the service.

Musharraf, who became a key US ally during Washington’s “war on terror” after the September 11 attacks, died exiled in Dubai on Sunday aged 79, having suffered a long illness.

In Pakistan, where the military is supremely powerful, Musharraf remains a controversial figure who left many Pakistanis with a deep distaste for direct military rule.

Prayers were held at the grounds of a military compound in Karachi in a funeral ceremony attended by around 10,000 people, mostly retired and serving military officers, an AFP reporter observed. “He was not given the honour that he deserved... the government has done nothing -- it should have arranged the funeral at the national stadium,” Rubina Mazhar, a herbal medicine doctor, told AFP after the prayers. Wajid Noor, a 71-year-old retired government official, said “thousands of people wanted to participate in the funeral but no details were provided”. The body was later transported to a nearby military graveyard where the coffin, draped in the national flag, was buried as hundreds of people watched surrounded by tight security. A junior army officer at the site who asked not to be named said a gun salute was given to the former leader.

- Economic boom, democratic declineThe four-star general seized power in a 1999 bloodless coup and was acting simultaneously as Pakistan’s army chief, chief executive, and president when the 9/11 attacks on the United States took place. He became Washington’s chief regional ally during the invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan, a decision which put him in the crosshairs of Islamist militants, who made several attempts on his life. But it also brought a huge influx of foreign aid, which bolstered the economy and helped modernise Pakistan.

Source: sg.finance.yahoo.com

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