A week after two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 nearly leveled southern Turkey and northern Syria, hundreds of thousands of people are sleeping outside, often in sub-zero temperatures. In Turkey’s southern province of Hatay, one of the areas hardest hit by the quake, where some citizens say it took days for ambulances to arrive, many are sleeping in their cars or in makeshift tents under market stalls, reports the Guardian.
In a speech last Wednesday in a tent city in Kahramanmaras, near the earthquake’s epicenter, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised that the state would provide immediate aid to the displaced. Those whose homes have been destroyed or who are unsure whether it is safe to return there will be placed in hotels, he said. “We will never allow our citizens to stay on the streets if they have nowhere to go,” Erdogan said. Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Sunday that more than a million people still live in tent cities. At night, the temperature in the affected areas drops to -9 degrees.
In Syria, the situation is even worse. “As many as 5.3 million people in Syria could have been left homeless by the earthquake,” said Sivanka Dhanapala, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Syria, during a briefing. a press briefing. “.
Survivors and construction experts in Turkey said poor construction likely exacerbated the extent of the earthquake’s destruction, as well as the death toll. In response, the Turkish government arrested construction contractors linked to the building collapse and the Ministry of Justice set up an office to investigate earthquake-related crimes in the disaster area.
However, construction experts say the builders would not have been able to go ahead with their plans without the approval of a number of officials who have so far avoided scrutiny for possibly signing covenants. substandard work. “The detention of contractors is a response to public outcry,” Taner Yuzgech, former president of the Chamber of Civil Engineers, a trade organization, told The New York Times. During his five-day visit to the earthquake zone, he said, he saw many signs of poor construction.
Construction has been the driving force behind the economic development policy of the Erdogan government. During his two decades as president and prime minister, he made the massive construction of roads, bridges, shopping malls and homes for Turkey’s 80 million people a pillar of economic growth. Turkey was hit by a massive earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people and has since updated its building codes to prepare for future quakes. But construction experts said the quake showed rules were sometimes broken.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters on Sunday that 134 people would be prosecuted for their involvement in the collapsed buildings. 10 of them were arrested and seven others were banned from traveling abroad. “We will follow this closely until the necessary litigation is completed, especially against the building contractors who have suffered severe damage resulting in loss of life and injury,” Vice President Fuat Oktay told reporters. journalists in Ankara. .
Two contractors responsible for collapsing buildings in the city of Adiyaman, Yavuz Karakus and Sevilay Karakus, were arrested at Istanbul airport on Sunday, state media reported. They had over $17,000 in cash and planned to fly to Georgia. The new arrests follow Saturday’s arrests of high-ranking contractors: Mehmet Ertan Akay, who built a collapsed complex in the city of Gaziantep, two contractors of a 14-storey building in Adana which collapsed within a few moments, and Mehmet Yasar Coskun, who built a 12-storey building in Hatay province, which was destroyed overnight.
