Turkey: 113 arrest warrants for building collapses

The number of warrants for the arrest of those responsible for the construction of “houses of cards” in Turkey, under the ruins of which tens of thousands of people remain after the earthquake, has exceeded one hundred.

These houses are called cemeteries, even experts now find it difficult to estimate the number of people lying under the rubble. Thousands of buildings collapsed like cardboard, not resisting seismic vibrations, which raises the main question: whether the consequences of a natural disaster were aggravated by the human factor.

On the issuance of 113 arrest warrants related to the collapse of buildings, said on Sunday the official Turkish authorities. The number of confirmed deaths in Turkey and Syria is skyrocketing, surpassing 33,000 on Sunday evening. Tens of thousands of people remain trapped under tons of rubble, and it is impossible to count their exact number.

Turkish police have already arrested 12 people, tells CNN Greece, including building contractors. Among those arrested were a businessman from Gaziantep province and eleven people from Sanlıurfa province, according to DHA, the Turkish news agency. On Friday, a businessman from the province of Hatay was arrested at the airport in Istanbul, whose luxurious residence completely collapsed, leaving its inhabitants under the ruins.

More arrests are on the way, the BBC reports, but the move will be seen by many as an attempt to absolve themselves of overall responsibility for the disaster. Bekir Bozdag, Minister of Justice, said that anyone whose negligence and fault is found to be held accountable. The prosecutor’s office launched several investigations in the affected provinces, such as in Kahramanmaras – the city of Pazardzhik was at the epicenter of the earthquake. The Turkish Ministry of Justice has instructed prosecutors from ten provinces to set up “departments to investigate crimes related to the earthquake.”

Many experts have warned that a significant number of new buildings in Turkey are unsafe due to internal corruption and government policies. This policy allowed for notorious amnesties for contractors to stimulate a building boom, including in earthquake-prone regions. These amnesties made it possible to eliminate violations of building codes … with fines. The last one was announced in 2018. As a result, approximately six million dilapidated buildings were neither strengthened nor repaired.

Updated in 2018, the standards require concrete to be reinforced with bars. Vertical columns and horizontal beams are designed to absorb vibrations. Subject to the rules, the columns would have remained intact, and the damage would have been limited to the beams. But … the rules are not respected, since one can resort to the notorious amnesty. The data show that more than 100,000(!) applications for amnesty were filed in 10 cities affected by the last earthquake. And this is the main reason that apartment buildings in the earthquake zone turned out to be newly built, but collapsed under the influence of the elements, writes Air Force.

Turkey’s president is now facing public anger and criticism at a critical juncture ahead of the country’s upcoming presidential election. Erdogan visited the Kahramanmaras region on Wednesday and Thursday, close to the epicenter of the deadly earthquake. There he defended the government while admitting that there were “gaps”. He stressed that “it is impossible to be prepared for such a disaster, such things have always happened, this is part of the plan of fate.”

Six days after the earthquake situation becomes more and more desperate. In southern Turkey and northern Syria, millions of people have been left homeless, and temperatures continue to drop below freezing every night. The earthquake was called “the worst event in the last 100 years in this region” by the head of the United Nations on humanitarian affairs, who on Saturday was in the Turkish province of Kahramanmaras. Martin Griffiths said, “I think this is the worst natural disaster I have ever seen and also the most extraordinary international response.”

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