Why did a Turkish city withstand the earthquake when others collapsed?

For miles around the small Turkish city of Erzin, the ground was shattered, buildings destroyed and towns and cities reduced to concrete cemeteries by last week’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake.

But Erzin remains, an oasis of stability near the Mediterranean, where the question of why the city weathered an earthquake and aftershock – and many others did not, leaving more than 40,000 dead in Turkey and Syria – consumes the population. In Erzin, no one died and no building fell, the mayor said.

The mayor seized the opportunity almost immediately to boast that he had long prevented the wrongful construction, which is now the focus of authorities across Turkey. But engineers and scientists credit other factors combined for saving the city, such as better construction that followed the latest seismic codes, and Erzin’s fortunate location on very solid ground.

“The condition of the soil is the main reason we haven’t been severely damaged,” said Omer Emre, a geomorphologist who spent 40 years studying fault lines in the region and now works with a private research group, Fugro.

Erzin is less than 50 miles from the epicenter, closer than southern cities like Iskenderun and Antakya. But Antakya was devastated, much of it reduced to rubble, and Alexandretta was hit hard, with a great fire in the port, seawater flooding the streets, destroying apartments and shops.

Many towns and villages in the region were built on top of the layers of sand, silt and mud in the ancient river bed. That soil, like the soft coastal ground beneath Alexandretta, was more prone to shaking, Emery said.

“These soft, water-filled deposits make cities and villages uniquely vulnerable to earthquakes,” he said. When one hits the ground, he added, “it moves like a wave.”

Erzin, by contrast, stands higher than sea level and is built on solid ground consisting of “basal rock and coarser grains of sand,” said Tamir Duman, a geographer.

Deadly earthquake in Turkey and Syria An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale on February 6 with its epicenter in Gaziantep, Turkey has become one of the deadliest natural disasters of this century.

He said the solid soil acts as a shock absorber between the structures and the earthquake waves, reducing the impact of the buildings.

There were other cases in which hard soil limited damage, geologists said, including in 1999, when a small village called Tavsancil withstood a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that killed thousands in western Turkey. And across a region rocked by last week’s earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks, there are many stark examples of neighborhoods largely intact when other parts of the same cities were flattened, prompting residents to wonder why the differences.

In one of the world’s most seismically active regions, Turkey has long had builders’ seismic codes, updated over the past few decades. The authorities have now turned their attention to finding contractors who can be held responsible for the collapses, and have already detained dozens. Builders have been accused of using cheap materials and avoiding building codes to speed up projects and fatten profits — erecting structures that could not survive earthquakes.

The mayor of Erzin, Okkes Elmasoglu, considered himself as an unsung hero who stopped bad builders, through this topic.

“With serious intent, the mayor has not allowed illegal construction in the past four years,” said the mayor’s advisor, Irai Gunner, emphasizing that his office has reported rogue contractors to state prosecutors and ordered the demolition of shoddy projects.

Many engineers downplayed the mayor’s claims, but acknowledged that the city had good engineers, and lax law enforcement had played a role in the devastation outside of Erzin.

“This is our problem in Turkey: Anyone in this country who has land can decide to build – a butcher, a farmer or a chef,” said a civil engineer from Iskenderun, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals for criticizing the government. Censorship.

He said that many developers are inexperienced and uneducated about the regulations, such as the earthquake code for strong enterprises.

“I picked up the concrete that fell from my fingers like sand,” said the engineer, who traveled to Iskenderun to survey for evidence of malpractice. He described very thin beams made of cheap steel attached to flimsy fittings. “The earthquake wasn’t the real killer here,” he said. “This was about the quality of our build.”

Others echoed recent criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government over legislation, enacted a few years ago, that allows landlords to pay fees to be exempt from building violations without retrofitting their buildings.

“We asked the government to impose engineering inspections before granting amnesty,” said Orhan Sarialton, a board member of the Federation of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, a group often at odds with Erdogan’s party.

Mr Sarialton also said that builders who want to bypass the regulations will set up private inspection companies on behalf of relatives. He said, “They started examining themselves.”

He said inspection companies and city governments should now be investigated along with construction companies. He said, “The projection on the contractors only means lifting the responsibility from the shoulders of the government.”

He attributed Erzin’s good condition to the fact that it has developed considerably over the past two decades, with construction better after the latest seismic codes. “The buildings were constructed according to the regulations,” he explained. “Otherwise, he would have collapsed too.”

Many local engineers applauded. Hasan Aksoy said that during the earthquake, he was awakened by the swaying of his apartment on the sixth floor – in one of the tallest buildings in the district.

“The building was dancing,” said Mr. Aksoy, 39. He waited several minutes for the movement to slow, then encouraged his wife and two children outside. The next day, he calls the building’s architect, his friend, to thank him.

“This earthquake is a testament to his good work,” he said.

His friend, Jim Erzinelli, said he had received a flurry of similar calls from residents.

“Erzin deserves to have a moment to shine,” he said.

Others openly criticized the city leaders. “This has nothing to do with our mayor,” said Serif Vural, a local official.

“Our mayor’s braggarts have ensured that aid does not reach our people who are still sleeping on the streets,” he said, referring to the thousands of residents who do not feel safe to return home yet.

The mayor’s office declined to comment on residents’ criticism. But nearly 10 days after the quake, even as life has restored a degree of normality, many still feel terrified by the precarious buildings.

“We thought it was doomsday,” said Aisha, a 46-year-old landlord who, along with about 30 renters, was staying in one of the many relief tents dotting street corners and parks. She said she and the others were still too afraid to go home, though she added, “Of course we feel lucky — we don’t have injuries.”

Reminders of the earthquake can be seen in many places: cracks in storefronts, cracks along buildings on the city’s main thoroughfare, wreckage of a mosque minaret, crumbling pavement.

“It’s surreal,” Mr. Erzenli said, adding that it didn’t look like the sprawling devastation not far away. Originally from the ruined port city of Iskenderun, Mr. Erzinli has spent two days searching for a friend there, in the rubble near the ruined city

“A few days ago we were laughing and drinking tea – then I got a call saying he was missing,” he said. His friend’s family only recovered his body this week.

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