Asia&Middle-East Turkey earthquake: Anger at building standards grows

The BBC has verified examples of recently built blocks that collapsed in the latest disaster.

One building in Malatya (seen below) was finished last year and screenshots circulated on social media of an advert saying it was “completed in compliance with the latest earthquake regulations.”

The text stated that all materials and workmanship used were “first-class quality”.

There’s no trace of this advert now, but a number of people had taken pictures and videos and posted them online. The advertisement matches the style of similar ones on the company website.

Another recently built apartment block in the port city of Iskenderun has been pictured largely destroyed.

The construction company for this building posted an image showing it was completed in 2019.

The BBC has verified that the image of the destroyed building (right) matches the location of the company’s publicity shot of the block (left).

Another building which was opened in Antakya in 2019 can be seen largely destroyed in a picture verified by the BBC.

We found a video of the housing complex’s opening ceremony from November 2019, in which the owner of a construction company involved says: “The Guclu Bahce City project is particularly special compared to the others in terms of its location and construction qualities.”

Although the quakes were powerful, experts say properly constructed buildings should have been able to stay standing.

“The maximum intensity for this earthquake was violent but not necessarily enough to bring well constructed buildings down,” says David Alexander, Professor of Emergency Planning and Management at University College London.

“In most places the level of shaking was less than the maximum, so we can conclude out of the thousands of buildings that collapsed, almost all of them don’t stand up to any reasonably expected earthquake construction code.”

Failure to enforce building regulations

Construction regulations have been tightened following previous disasters, most recently in 2018.

Stricter safety standards were also brought in following the 1999 earthquake around the city of Izmit, in the north-west of the country, in which 17,000 people died.

The latest rules require structures in earthquake-prone regions to use high quality concrete reinforced with steel bars. Columns and beams must also be distributed to effectively absorb the impact of earthquakes.

These laws, however, have been poorly enforced.

“In part the problem is that there’s very little retrofitting of existing buildings, but there’s also very little enforcement of building standards on new builds,” says Prof Alexander.

Why is enforcement so weak?

The government has provided periodic “construction amnesties” - effectively legal exemptions for the payment of a fee, for those structures built without the required safety certificates. These have been passed since the 1960s (with the latest in 2018).

Critics have long warned that such amnesties risk catastrophe in the event of a major earthquake.

Up to 75,000 buildings across the affected earthquake zone in southern Turkey have been given construction amnesties, according to Pelin Pınar Giritlioğlu, Istanbul head of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects’ Chamber of City Planners.

Just a few days before the latest disaster, Turkish media reported that a new draft law is awaiting parliamentary approval which would grant a further amnesty for recent construction work.

Geologist Celal Sengor said earlier this year that passing such construction amnesties in a country riven by fault lines amounts to a “crime”.

After a deadly earthquake hit the western province of Izmir in 2020, a BBC Turkish report found that 672,000 buildings in Izmir had benefited from the most recent amnesty.

This same report cited the Environment and Urbanisation Ministry as stating in 2018 that over 50% of buildings in Turkey - equivalent to almost 13 million buildingswere constructed in violation of regulations. We’ve contacted the Environment and Urbanisation Ministry for comment about building standards in Turkey following the most recent earthquakes, who said: “No building constructed by our administration has collapsed. Damage assessment studies are continuing rapidly in the field.”

Turkey earthquake: Erdogan ‘responsible for this’ opposition leader says

Anger is growing in Turkey over the government’s perceived failure to prepare after thousands died in two huge earthquakes on Monday.

On a visit to one of the worst-hit regions, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the official death toll in Turkey had climbed to 9,057.

The main opposition leader has blamed him for the scale of the devastation.

But Mr Erdogan hit back, saying it was “not possible” to be prepared for such a big disaster.

Many in the worst affected areas have have criticised the response by the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) for being too slow. Others say the government was not sufficiently prepared in advance.

“If there is one person responsible for this, it is Erdogan,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party.

The president rejected this. He also described those who said they had not seen security forces at all in some areas as “provocateurs”.

“This is a time for unity, solidarity. In a period like this, I cannot stomach people conducting negative campaigns for political interest,” he told reporters in Hatay.

During another stop on his tour of areas in the disaster zone earlier today, he acknowledged some initial problems, but said the situation was now “under control”.

In the southern Turkish port of Iskenderun on Tuesday, Arzu Dedeoglu said two of her nieces were trapped under the rubble. Her family had arranged a digger with their own resources to remove the debris, but she said officials did not allow them to use it.

“We waited till late in the evening, but nobody came,” Ms Dedeoglu said. “We brought in a caterpillar (digger) with our own means, but they did not want us to use it - they stopped us. We have two kids under the rubble: my sister’s daughters, Ayşegül and İlayda.

“They are gone now, they are gone.”

When emergency services eventually arrived, Ms Dedeoglu yelled that they were “too late”. Rescue workers paused for a moment, but the girls’ family begged them not to stop.

“Please don’t leave - maybe my kids are still alive,” said their mother.

Mr Erdogan has announced a threemonth state of emergency in 10 provinces worst-affected by an earthquake. It will end just before elections on 14 May, when the 68-year-old will attempt to stay in power after 20 years.

His main opposition is an alliance of centre-left and right-wing parties, known as the Table of Six. Mr Kilicdaroglu is expected to be the presidential candidate.

In a video posted on Twitter, he vowed not to meet the president “on any platform”, accusing the government of conducting “PR work” since the quakes.

Anger is also mounting over an “earthquake tax” levied by the Turkish government in the wake of a massive quake in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people.

The estimated 88bn lira ($4.6bn; £3.8bn) was meant to have been spent on disaster prevention and the development of emergency services.

Questions about the “special communication tax” - as the authorities call it - are asked every time there is an earthquake in Turkey. But the government has never publicly explained how the money is spent.

And Mr Kilicdaroglu said Mr Erdogan’s government “has not prepared for an earthquake for 20 years”.

But it is not just the president’s main political rival who is voicing anger at the government’s lack of preparedness.

“Where have all our taxes gone, collected since 1999?” Celal Deniz, 61, told the AFP news agency in the city of Gaziantep. His brother and nephews remain trapped under rubble.

Social media users have also criticised some Turkish mainstream and progovernment news channels for “muting” criticisms by people in affected areas.

Videos have been shared showing an NTV correspondent in Kahramanmaras saying locals were complaining that “aid is inadequate”, with residents heard in the background asking: “Where is the state?”

The channel then appears to cut the correspondent short before returning to the studio.

Another video shared online showed a survivor telling a reporter on mainstream Haberturk network that “no one has come” to rescue them for days. The reporter subsequently moves away from the survivor and says rescuers have been “looking everywhere”.

Speaking in Kahramanmaras, Mr Erdogan acknowledged there had been difficulties with the initial response to the disaster, but blamed the delays on damaged roads and airports.

He said people should only listen to communication from authorities and ignore “provocateurs”.

He is also scheduled to visit Hatay and Pazarcik, epicentre of the quake.

“The state is doing its job,” he said.

But for many in Iskenderun, the state arrived too late.

“Why didn’t you come yesterday, we were still hearing voices from the rubble yesterday!” one woman shouted at rescue workers on Tuesday.

Another woman was in tears.

“We could have saved them if you’d arrived yesterday,” she said.

Source: BBC