The latest earthquake wreaks havoc on the Turkish region, which suffered from a previous earthquake

Issued on: 26/2/2023 – 14:03

Turkey is still struggling in the aftermath of deadly earthquakes, in which nearly 50,000 people were killed and millions displaced in the worst humanitarian crisis in the Turkish Republic’s 100-year history. The humanitarian crisis now threatens to become a political crisis for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Emergency services rushed to the location of the last collapsed building as the quake-stricken Anatolia region of Turkey was hit by another powerful earthquake that was felt as far away as Egypt. For the earthquake survivors, there seems to be no end to this nightmare.

New tremors

In the city of Hatay, the rescue team pulled out a body from a collapsed building after the recent deadly earthquake.

Relatives are watching and mourning the latest victim. The epicenter of the earthquake was 6.4 near Hatay. An area already devastated by two massive earthquakes two weeks ago. The recent earthquake has left already deeply traumatized people trying to rebuild their shattered lives.

“I can’t sleep at night. Will the same thing happen again,” Hava Tuncay, a resident of Hatay, wondered. “Will we see another earthquake? We are very afraid. I haven’t slept in a week. It has reached a certain level that I sometimes don’t feel,” she added.

Staff inspect a truckload among a convoy carrying tents and shelter supplies provided by the United Nations following a deadly earthquake at Syria’s Bab al-Hawa crossing with Turkey in the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, in February. 12, 2023. AFP – Omar Hajj Kaddour

Experts warn of the danger of strong aftershocks from the latest earthquake. However, international aid still arrived. But since the beginning of the crisis, criticism of the emergency services’ slow response and lack of a large-scale military deployment has continued to grow.

“The situation on the ground is bleak, people are angry, we are all in mourning, and this is a catastrophe that we will not overcome soon,” said Zeynep Almedag, a political science professor at Ozan University in Istanbul.

“The region lost ten to twenty years”

Alamdag added, “The region has lost at least ten to twenty years.” “But most discussions about accountability for government actions and policies will revolve around why there was no previous attempt to mitigate the situation.”

While visiting the stricken region, President Erdoğan acknowledged the shortcomings but insisted that earthquakes were once in a century and that no one could plan for such a disaster.

“Despite the fact that we have assembled perhaps one of the largest search and rescue teams in the region with more than 141,000 members, unfortunately, it is the fact that we have not been able to respond as quickly as we had hoped,” Erdogan said.

Mehmet Kafer Cetin, an 18-year-old earthquake survivor, is rescued from the rubble of a building some 198 hours after last week’s devastating earthquake in Adiyaman, Turkey, February 14, 2023. via IHLAS News Agency (IHA)

But criticism is increasing with the development of the crisis. Government-controlled broadcasting regulators have begun imposing fines on television stations that criticize the handling of the crisis.

There are also questions about why so many buildings collapsed. Many of them were newly constructed and were supposed to comply with strict earthquake-proof regulations. Particularly scrutinized is a government amnesty four years ago for buildings that failed earthquake regulations in return for the builders paying a fine. It is believed that the owners of more than 100,000 buildings have benefited from amnesty in the quake-hit region.

political storm

The response to the crisis and its underlying causes created a gathering political storm for Erdogan and his government.

“It seems to me that the government did not realize the scale of the disaster,” warns political expert Süley Özel of Kadir Has University in Istanbul.

“The fact that everything stems from the presidential palace means that no one can take the lead, and it seemed to me that saving face and deflecting blame was far more important than saving lives and clearing the rubble, and then making survivors feel at ease.

“And now we’re at the stage of covering tracks with the president’s claim that 98 percent of the homes destroyed were built before 1999 (the year the earthquake-resistant building regulations were introduced) when I think the whole world knows that’s not true,” Ozil added.

The questions facing Erdogan and his AKP party are likely to grow as the humanitarian crisis deepens. The country is heading towards presidential and parliamentary elections that should be held by June.

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