As anger swells over quake, Turkey detains building contractors — As the death toll in Turkey and Syria passed 28,000, Ankara was coming under growing criticism for its slow response and tolerance of shoddy construction
As anger swells over quake, Turkey detains building contractors — As the death toll in Turkey and Syria passed 28,000, Ankara was coming under growing criticism for its slow response and tolerance of shoddy construction
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Excerpt from the linked content,^1 last updated 11 Feb. 2023 5:15 PM EST:
>ADIYAMAN, Turkey — Turkish officials on Saturday began detaining dozens of contractors they blamed for some of the building collapses in Monday’s devastating earthquake, as anger swelled over the government’s slow rescue effort and the death toll in the country surpassed 24,000.
>More than 100 people were detained across the 10 provinces affected by the quake, the state-run Anadolu News Agency reported on Saturday, as the Turkish Justice Ministry ordered officials in those provinces to set up “Earthquake Crimes Investigation Units.”
>It also directed them to appoint prosecutors to bring criminal charges against all the “constructors and those responsible” for the collapse of buildings that failed to meet existing codes, which had been put in place after a similar disaster in 1999.
>The arrests were the first steps by the Turkish state toward identifying and punishing people who may have contributed to the deaths of their fellow citizens in the quake.
>Across the earthquake zone, residents expressed outrage at what they contended were corrupt builders who cut corners to fatten their profits and the government’s granting of “amnesties” to builders who put up apartment complexes that failed to meet the new codes.
>
>While Turkey has building codes put in place after the 1999 quake, residents said that they were often not applied because contractors can earn more money when they cut corners: mixing the concrete and using cheaper metal bars to gird pillars, among other things.
>Mesut Koparal, a car dealer whose mother was killed in the quake, was furious at the state for not doing more to ensure buildings were constructed well.
>“The state is responsible,” he said. “If you have a small amount of debt, the state chases you and finds you, but they don’t check the buildings.”
>“I’m not an engineer, I’m not a contractor,” he added. “How would I know?”
>His neighbor, Mehmet Celik, 38, a middle-school teacher, said the big problem was so-called amnesties for buildings that were not built according to code, which the government occasionally issues to effectively legalize such buildings.
>It’s good politics, because no one wants a building or apartment they had paid for to be condemned, he said. But then the building is vulnerable when a quake hits.
^ 1 Ben Hubbard and Safak Timur reported from Adiyaman, Turkey; Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Raja Abdulrahim from Antakya, Turkey; Gulsin Harman from Istanbul; and Steven Erlanger from Brussels. Farah Mohamed contributed reporting from London. 11 Feb. 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/11/world/middleeast/turkey-syria-earthquake.html
And what about all the corrupt officials who did nothing to enforce the building laws?
As they should, good for them!
But the politicians who allowed this should be detained too!
Yeah, I saw this video, which says it all really:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/10yq3b8/fallen_apartment_block_in_t%C3%BCrkiye_shows_how/
That building basically had no foundations whatsoever, and if lots of other buildings in Turkey are built like that, then it’s no wonder that lots of people are dying. The politicians and corrupt officials who have allowed this kind of poor construction to happen (in an earthquake zone) due to not passing proper construction regulations or not enforcing the regulations that do exist have blood on their hands.
I’m getting deja Vu vibes. Isn’t this what happened after the last big earthquake that wasn’t even that long ago?
They will use the contractors as scape goats so the spirits calm down for the upcoming election. Erdogan knows his presidency is at stake and I expect he will make quite a show and an example of these contractors.