A scientist warns that the Istanbul earthquake could kill hundreds of thousands

A scientist warns that Istanbul earthquake could kill hundreds of thousands Posted by Ozan Özgür 7 July 2020

In an interview with Cumhuriyet daily on June 29, renowned geologist Professor Nassi Guru warned against preparing for an expected earthquake of at least 7.2 degrees in Istanbul that could kill hundreds of thousands. Earthquake experts internationally agree that an earthquake of 7 magnitude is likely to occur in the next ten years in Istanbul.

When asked, “What would Istanbul look like if there was at least a magnitude 7.2 earthquake?” Guru criticized the local government in Istanbul led by Akram Imamoglu (CHP, CHP). He said, “This is our concern. For example, there is an earthquake report published by IBB [Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality]. If I were, I wouldn’t have posted it. … must have been made by our very optimistic friends. “

The IBB report predicted that there would be 14,000 deaths after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Istanbul.

Guru said frankly: “This is not right,” describing the grave situation facing millions of Istanbul workers: “A simple calculation: There are 1.6 million buildings. Let’s reduce all deaths to 1 percent in Istanbul. This means 16,000 buildings. A four-storey building means 64,000 floors. If we think two apartments on each floor, this means 128,000 apartments. Put four people in each apartment, so does it exceed 400,000 [deaths]? “

He blamed successive central and local governments for neglecting the earthquake risks not only in Istanbul, but throughout Turkey. He said: “This government was not the only one responsible for the failure to take action on the earthquake. So was the previous one. “

He criticized huge government construction projects such as the Istanbul Canal, Istanbul Airport, highways and bridges, which were built for large companies, to block necessary measures against earthquake risks. He said: “Neither canal projects nor airport projects, nor bridge or road projects are more important than the tremendous death toll of this country in the earthquake.”

In conclusion, he stressed that if the authorities take the measures recommended by scientists, a large number of dead people can be prevented. He said, “Ask the scientists, if you do the things that draw attention to them, you cannot stop the earthquake, but you will reduce the damage. Maybe you will reduce it to 100 deaths, instead of losing 10,000 people.… So isn’t this the biggest project? what are you waiting for? “

Three months before the earthquake that struck the city of Elazig in eastern Turkey in January, Guru warned of the danger of the earthquake in the region, calling for immediate action. A 6.8 magnitude earthquake on January 24 left 41 people dead and more than 1,600 injured.

Turkey is a country prone to earthquakes, and many of its cities are built on active errors, and it has a catastrophic seismic record. Last month, there were several earthquakes with a magnitude of 4 to 5.5 across Turkey. In the 1999 Marmara earthquake, official reports stated that about 18,000 people lost their lives and more than 25,000 were injured. Some unofficial reports estimate that the actual death toll was 50,000 and 100,000 injured. The 2011 earthquake in the eastern province of Van left more than 600 people dead and nearly 4,200 wounded.

All research conducted, especially after the 1999 earthquake, shows that the expected earthquake on the Anatolia fault line will likely have a magnitude of at least 7.2 in the Marmara Sea off Istanbul. This would lead to a catastrophe not only in Turkey’s largest city, but also in neighboring industrial cities such as Kocaeli, Bursa and Tekirdağ.

However, the ruling class and governments of all the founding parties have done nothing against this coming catastrophe in Istanbul, where 16 million people, or nearly 20 percent of the Turkish population, live. Instead of preparing for a massive earthquake that scientists had warned against for years, social resources were transferred to the capitalist class. Indeed, the death toll from the next massive earthquake in Istanbul may be a product of not a natural disaster but a social crime committed by the Turkish ruling class.

There is no doubt that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bears the primary responsibility for this great destruction and the risk of death facing millions of workers. He was not only Erdogan’s president since 2002, but he was the mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1999. Until the 2019 local elections, Istanbul was ruled by the Erdogan Justice and Development Party (AKP).

In all these years, while national and local authorities changed Istanbul’s construction plans to allow real estate companies to build massive buildings and earn billions, nothing was done in preparation for the earthquake. In 2011, the Turkish Finance Minister said that the government spent seismic taxes (about 46-48 billion Turkish liras) collected since 1999 on highways, health care and education, and not to prepare for earthquakes.

However, Istanbul Mayor Ikram Imamoglu – who was supported by the far-right party, the Kurdish National People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and many pseudo-left groups in the local elections in March 2019 as an alternative to the “Justice and Development Party” – had no earthquake policy different from his predecessor .

Instead of doing concrete work such as the urgent renovation of buildings in working-class neighborhoods, Imamoglu focused on defining the population areas and how to conduct a preliminary damage analysis immediately after the earthquake.

For years, especially in Istanbul, campaigns of “urban transformation” have been a means of expelling working-class residents from the city center and building luxury housing for the wealthy. The goal is not to protect the population from earthquakes, but to increase the profits of construction companies and enrich the richest strata of society.

Because of this irrationality of capitalism, thousands of new earthquake-resistant apartments remain empty in Istanbul and other cities, while hundreds of thousands of people live in old buildings that represent death traps and are likely to collapse in a future earthquake.

Natural disasters, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes have hit all over the world, and global epidemics such as COVID-19 are the working class, which makes up the vast majority of society, and the poorer sectors of the middle classes, because of their miserable living conditions. On the other hand, an elite group of billionaires and billionaires possess riches and live in castle-like homes.

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has clearly demonstrated that defending humanity against natural disasters, climate change and the threat of a pandemic requires a level of global planning and cooperation that capitalism cannot achieve.

A massive public works plan is needed to rebuild cities around the world threatened by natural disasters, such as Istanbul, on the basis of scientific planning and the highest level of security, to provide everyone with the basic right to safe housing. Implementing this solution requires a conscious struggle to transfer political power to the working class – the struggle for international socialism, on the basis of planning a global economic life based on social needs, not private profit.

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