Painful lesson for the Turkish construction industry seen from the earthquake disaster

(Dan Tri) – Thousands of buildings collapsed, killing more than 17,000 people after the 1999 earthquake, which is still a painful memory for the Turkish people.

Women stand near a ruined building after the recent earthquake in Gaziantep, Türkiye (Photo: Reuters).

After the devastating earthquake disaster in 1999, Turkish officials pledged to introduce strict construction regulations as well as apply an `earthquake tax` to improve preparedness in a country located

At that time, the government’s slow response `helped` the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan come to power.

At that time, this party was newly established and later won the 2002 election with an overwhelming majority with promises of transparency and rebuilding an economy destroyed by

But nearly 24 years later, when the earthquake and thousands of even more devastating aftershocks struck on February 6, people across Türkiye searched not only for missing loved ones but also for answers. word.

Turkish authorities have issued arrest warrants for more than 100 people involved in collapsed buildings, including contractors, architects, and engineers.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said that authorities have identified 131 suspects responsible for the quality of construction in 10 provinces affected by the earthquake.

`We have issued arrest warrants for 113 people,` Mr. Oktay said at a press conference at the disaster coordination center in Ankara on February 12.

The Ministry of Justice has also established an office to investigate earthquake-related crimes in affected areas.

Environment Minister Murat Kurum said that according to preliminary assessments, there are more than 170,000 buildings across the south of the country, 24,921 buildings collapsed or severely damaged by the earthquake.

Weak construction system

After another earthquake in 2011 left hundreds dead, Mr. Erdogan, then prime minister, blamed the high death toll on poor construction.

Now, with more than 40,000 people dead in Türkiye alone and more than 1 million homeless, it is clear that lax enforcement of building codes is once again exacerbating this crisis.

President Erdogan has seen construction as the engine of Türkiye’s economy, which depends on cheap foreign credit to fund new highways, hospitals, and residential and commercial towers across the country. country until the Turkish lira collapsed in 2018.

On paper, Türkiye’s construction safety standards are among the best in the world.

Thousands of buildings collapsed, killing tens of thousands of people in the 1999 earthquake in Türkiye (Photo: Daily Sabah).

The concrete must be reinforced with steel, and load-bearing walls and columns must be distributed so as to avoid the `pancake` phenomenon, where floors pile up on top of each other after collapsing vertically.

However, Turkish and international geologists, urban planners, architects and earthquake response experts have warned for years that even many modern structures across

Violations are not punished strongly enough that construction companies and investors have largely been ignored because it would be too expensive to deal with.

At the same time, the population in many of Türkiye’s worst-hit areas has swelled over the past decade due to millions of refugees from neighboring Syria.

Hakan Suleyman, a researcher in the earthquake engineering department at Bogazici University in Istanbul, said proper enforcement of safety rules would mean a `completely different picture now`.

`The death toll will be greatly reduced because buildings designed to withstand earthquakes will be less likely to collapse. Damage to infrastructure will be minimized, which will help speed up the recovery process

Professor Ovgun Ahmet Ercan, a member of the earthquake advisory board of the Turkish geophysical engineering department, also commented that although he has been dealing with earthquakes for 53 years, he has never experienced a disaster like this.

President Erdogan has pledged that reconstruction will be completed within a year, but many experts say this is a seemingly impossible task given the scale of destruction over a large area.