Turkey is investigating contractors after the earthquake death toll exceeded 33,000

A man interacts next to rescuers in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey on February 11, 2023.

Kamal Aslan | Reuters

Turkish authorities are targeting contractors allegedly linked to buildings that collapsed in the powerful Feb. 6 earthquake. Rescuers found more survivors under the rubble on Sunday, including a pregnant woman and two children, in the disaster that killed more than 33,000 people.

The death toll from earthquakes measuring 7.8 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, which occurred nine hours apart in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, has risen to 33,185 and is sure to increase as search teams find more bodies.

With despondency over the slow, agonizing rescues, the focus shifted to assigning blame.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 131 people were under investigation for their alleged responsibility in constructing buildings that failed to withstand earthquakes. While the earthquakes were strong, many in Turkey blamed faulty construction for compounding the devastation.

Turkey’s building codes comply with current earthquake engineering standards, at least on paper, but they are rarely enforced, which explains why thousands of buildings have fallen or smashed onto the people inside.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said that among those facing scrutiny were two people who were arrested in Gaziantep province on suspicion of cutting columns to make extra space in a collapsed building. The Ministry of Justice said three people were arrested, seven others, and another seven prevented from leaving Turkey.

Rescue workers search for survivors after the deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, February 10, 2023.

Emily Madi | Reuters

The Dubai Health Authority’s private news agency and other media reported that two contractors responsible for destroying buildings in Adiyaman were arrested, Sunday, at Istanbul Airport while trying to leave the country. The arrested contractor, Yavuz Karakos, told the DHA: “My conscience is clear. I built 44 buildings, of which four were demolished, and I did everything according to the rules.”

Rescue workers reported finding more survivors amid increasingly long odds. Thermal cameras were used as crews demanded silence to hear the trapped.

In the hard-hit province of Hatay, crews in the town of Iskenderun transported a 50-year-old woman with serious injuries. According to broadcasters TRT and HaberTurk, similar rescue operations in the province saved two more women, one of whom was pregnant.

HaberTurk showed a 6-year-old being rescued from his wrecked home in Adiyaman. The exhausted rescuer removed the surgical mask and took a deep breath as several women wept for joy.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca published a video of a young girl wearing a dark blue jacket who was found alive. “There is always hope!” he tweeted.

A woman holds a baby sits next to a collapsed building as the search continues for survivors, following the deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, February 10, 2023.

Umit Bektas | Reuters

Rescue workers in Antakya, elsewhere in Hatay province, pulled a man in his late 20s or 30s from the rubble, saying he was one of nine trapped in the building. He waved weakly as he was carried away on a stretcher as the workers clapped and chanted “God is great!”

The German news agency (dpa) reported that German and Turkish workers rescued 88 years old in Kerekhan. Italian and Turkish rescuers found a 35-year-old man in Antakya unharmed, NTV private television reported.

A baby girl was released overnight in the town of Nizip in Gaziantep, while a 32-year-old woman was found in a shattered eight-storey building in Antakya and asked for tea as she walked out, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Those were rare exceptions.

Bulldozers and bulldozers prepared a large cemetery on the outskirts of Antakya as trucks and ambulances brought in a steady stream of black body bags. Hundreds of graves are marked with simple planks of wood.

Hatay airport reopened on Sunday after its runway was repaired, and military and commercial planes have ferried supplies and will pick up evacuees.

There are 34,717 Turkish soldiers involved in the rescue effort. On Sunday, Turkey’s foreign ministry said 9,595 individuals from 74 countries had joined them, with more on the way.

Syrians warm by a fire in a temporary shelter for people made homeless, near the rebel-held town of Jinderes on February 9, 2023, two days after a deadly earthquake hit Turkey and Syria.

Ramy Al-Sayed | AFP | Getty Images

In the Syrian capital, Damascus, the head of the World Health Organization warned that the pain will extend forward, describing the catastrophe as “an unfolding tragedy affecting millions.”

“The worsening crises of conflict, the Covid pandemic, the cholera epidemic, the economic downturn and now the earthquake have all taken an unbearable toll,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Tedros said WHO experts were waiting to enter northwest Syria, “where we’ve been told the impact is worse.”

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, who visited the Turkish-Syrian border on Sunday, said that the Syrians are “looking for international assistance that has not yet arrived.”

“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They are right to feel abandoned,” he said, adding, “My duty and our obligation is to rectify this failure as quickly as possible.”

In the city of Atarib, in the opposition-held northern province of Aleppo, Abdel Haseeb Abdel Rahim on Sunday returned to his destroyed four-storey building in an attempt to salvage any valuables but found only blankets, pillows and some clothes. His aunt and husband died there, but their three children survived.

With no international rescue efforts in the war-torn region, the 34-year-old had to retrieve the bodies himself.

“You can’t hear someone screaming inside. You can’t sit down,” he said, sitting on top of a pile of debris.

Political differences have hampered aid convoys sent from areas of northeastern Syria controlled by US-backed Kurdish groups to those controlled by the Syrian government and Turkish-backed fighters who have fought alongside Kurdish groups over the years.

A UN aid convoy sent to northwestern Syria through government-held areas has been delayed due to obstruction from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al Qaeda-affiliated group that rules Idlib province, a UN spokesperson told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, United Nations aid convoys continue to cross from Turkey into northwest Syria through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing. The first UN convoy reached northwest Syria only on Thursday, three days after the disaster struck.

Before that, there was only a steady stream of corpses through Bab al-Hawa: Syrian refugees who fled the civil war and settled in Turkey but died in the disaster, returning home for burial.

The death toll from the earthquake in the rebel-held area of ​​northwest Syria has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group the White Helmets. The total death toll in Syria reached 3,553 on Saturday, although the 1,387 deaths reported in government-controlled parts of the country had not been updated in days. The death toll in Turkey stood at 29,605 as of Sunday.

The Turkish Ministry of Justice announced the establishment of offices to investigate earthquake crimes to identify contractors and others responsible for construction work. would collect evidence; instructing experts including architects, geologists, and engineers; Verification of building permits and occupation permits.

A contractor was arrested on Friday at Istanbul airport before he could leave the country. He built a luxurious 12-storey building called Ronesans Rezidans in Antakya, and when it fell, he killed countless people. He was officially arrested Saturday.

In a leaked affidavit published by Anadolu Agency, the man said the building followed regulations and that he did not know why it did not remain standing. His lawyer indicated that his client was a scapegoat.

Under programs that allowed building owners to pay fines rather than bring them up to the level of law, the government agency responsible for enforcement admitted in 2019 that more than half of all buildings in Turkey – which accounts for some 13 million apartments – were not in compliance.

The arrests could help direct public anger toward builders and contractors, distracting it from local and state officials who have apparently allowed substandard construction to continue. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, already burdened by economic stagnation and high inflation, faces parliamentary and presidential elections in May.

The nongovernmental business organization TURKONFED estimated earthquake damage at $84.1 billion, based on statistics from the devastating 1999 earthquake in northwest Turkey, including $70.1 billion in housing and $10.4 billion in GDP.

Rescue teams were overwhelmed by the widespread destruction of roads and airports, making it difficult to move quickly.

Erdogan acknowledged that the damage hampered the initial response. The hardest-hit area is 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter and has a population of 13.5 million. Erdogan, during Saturday’s tour, said such a tragedy was rare, referring to it as the “disaster of the century” in multiple speeches.

In New York City, mourners gathered Saturday at a mosque to remember a family of four from Queens who were killed while visiting relatives in Turkey. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Burak and Kimberly Ferik and their two sons, ages 1 and 2, perished in the disaster.

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