Full Extent of Damage From Turkey Quakes Takes Shape

Abstract

Nearly two weeks after a pair of severe earthquakes rocked central Turkey and northern Syria, the full extent of the damage to buildings and other structures is beginning to emerge. "Places like Hatay, are [built] on a soft riverbed [geology]. Certain areas of the city look like a nuclear blast, like pictures from Hiroshima." In comparison, other cities in central Turkey, such as Gaziantep which is located on a mountainside, survived the quakes with relatively moderate damage and fewer collapsed buildings. In performing some initial assessments of structural damage for the World Bank and other NGOs, Miyamoto says the full scale of the damage is more than just visibly collapsed buildings. "As far as the [Turkish] government's response, it's the best practice I've seen in a long time. But reconstruction will be hard." In his tour of the earthquake zone, Miyamoto did note that some buildings build with modern seismic designs performed very well. In one widely seen video clip from a campaign stop in Kahramanmaraş, a city in central Turkey particularly hard hit by the recent quakes, Erdoğan can be heard saying "We have solved the problems of 144,556 Maras citizens with the amnesty," referring to the city's recent building boom. Pelin Pınar Giritlioğlu, the Istanbul head of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects' Chamber of City Planners, told Turkish media organization Halk TV that 70,000 to 75,000 buildings in the earthquake-hit region of southern Turkey have been granted such exemptions from building code standards. BBC Turkish reported in 2020 following an earthquake in the western city of Izmir that the Turkish Environment and Urbanization Ministry estimated roughly half of the buildings in Turkey were constructed in violation of regulations.