Today, on Monday, February 13, new arrests were made in Turkey of builders and contractors, whom the authorities believe are responsible for the poor quality of construction, which led to the destruction of houses and numerous casualties after the earthquakes that occurred last week.
Nazmi Tosun, construction manager and technical representative of the Emre apartment complex destroyed in Gaziantep province, was arrested this morning in Istanbul. Prosecutors in Malatya also issued arrest warrants for 31 people today in connection with the collapse of buildings in the city.
Police have arrested Hasan Alpargun in occupied Northern Cyprus after several buildings built by his construction company collapsed over the weekend in the southern province of Adana, according to police.
Contractor Ibrahim Mustafa Uncuoglu was arrested in Istanbul after a technical examination of the ruins of a residential building in the province of Gaziantep revealed negligence.
Istanbul police arrested another contractor, Mehmet Ertan Akay, after a building he built collapsed during the earthquake in Gaziantep. Prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Akai on charges of negligent homicide and violation of building codes.
Mehmet Yasar Choskun, the contractor for a large apartment building that collapsed in Hatay province, was also arrested on Saturday.
Earlier, the police detained Choskun at the Istanbul airport when he was preparing to leave Turkey and go to Montenegro. Choskun said he did not know why the building was destroyed and his trip to Montenegro had nothing to do with the collapse of the building.
Expert: most of the collapsed buildings in Turkey were built with violations
Many houses in Turkey that collapsed in the powerful earthquake that struck on the night of February 6 were built without safety standards. This is written by the BBC, which studied the pictures of the destroyed buildings and spoke with experts.
According to the 2018 building standards, high-quality concrete reinforced with steel rods must be used in the structures of buildings that are located in seismically hazardous areas, the BBC notes. In addition, columns and beams in houses must be distributed so that they can withstand the impact of earthquakes.
However, in the photographs studied by journalists, the lower half of one of the apartment buildings in Malatya completely collapsed during the earthquake. According to the BBC, the building was completed in 2022, and screenshots of an advertisement can be found on social media saying it was “completed in accordance with the latest earthquake protection regulations.”
Another newly built 16-story house in the port city of Iskenderun was also largely destroyed, with the side and back of the building completely collapsed, leaving only a piece of the block.
Another image from Antakya, which the BBC studied, shows that much of one of the nine-story residential complexes has also fallen into ruins. At the same time, the last two houses were built in 2019, that is, after the adoption of new safety standards.
According to David Alexander, an expert in emergency planning and management at University College London, the earthquake in Turkey was strong, but not enough to “destroy well-constructed buildings.”
“In most places, the shaking level was less than the maximum, so we can conclude that almost all of the thousands of buildings that collapsed do not withstand any reasonably expected building codes.Alexander notes.
The expert also noted that laws passed in 2018 are poorly enforced and old buildings are rarely modernized.
Video from Turkey, where the builder shows the disgusting quality of building materials. It is worth noting that similar hollow bricks are also used in Greece. They are slightly higher quality, but also not reliable enough. In most countries located in seismic zones, construction using such materials is prohibited.
However, how informs Al Jazeera, most of the buildings that collapsed in Turkey were built before 2000. The channel notes that after the earthquake of magnitude 7.4 to the east of Istanbul in 1999, which killed more than 17 thousand people, the country introduced new requirements for the seismic stability of buildings. In the Turkish National Earthquake Strategy saysthat the “uncontrolled urbanization” of the 20th century poses a “critical” threat to the cities of Turkey. At the same time, according to Al Jazeera, almost all the collapsed buildings were erected just in that period and without taking into account long-term risks.
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