Earthquake fever sweeps the Turkish city of Istanbul amid fears of a “big earthquake” | Türkiye and Syria earthquake news

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Earthquake fever has gripped Istanbul since last year's disaster in southern Turkey, with residents of Europe's most populous city fearing similar devastation.

The city is located near the North Anatolian Fault Line, a geological hazard that has caused Istanbul to suffer at least 34 powerful earthquakes over the past 2,000 years.

People in Istanbul can feel smaller tremors every year, an ominous reminder of the danger lurking beneath their streets.

For many, seeing the stark devastation of large swathes of Turkey last February heightened their anxiety about the inevitable but unexpected arrival of the Big One.

Istanbul's official population is 16 million, but estimates based on household water consumption by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality put the number at 20 million.

The vast majority of residents live in apartment buildings of five or more floors in small neighborhoods with little open space.

Buildings built before 1999 – the year a powerful earthquake in the eastern Sea of ​​Marmara struck Istanbul, killing 18,000 people – are considered particularly vulnerable. Officials say such buildings represent two-thirds of the city's construction.

But rising property prices mean that even those who fear their buildings are unsafe cannot afford to move.

Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said economic conditions – with the annual inflation rate currently at 65 percent – hindered “saving the city from tragedy.”

A family sits next to a collapsed building waiting for the bodies of their relatives to be pulled from under the rubble in Antakya, southeastern Turkey, February 11, 2023. [Bernat Armangue/AP Photo]

The municipality has examined 35,000 buildings to measure their ability to withstand earthquakes, but many residents are unwilling to undergo the tests.

“65% of the people who are offered the quick scan do not let us in,” Imamoglu recently told reporters. “What they're worried about is what they'll do if they find out the building isn't safe.”

Damage on the scale of last year's earthquake, combined with the potential for a tsunami, would have catastrophic effects not only on the city but also on the country.

Istanbul is Turkey's financial and commercial powerhouse – last year it accounted for more than half of Turkish exports – and such a strike would devastate the country's economy.

Okan Toysuz, a professor at the Institute of Eurasian Geosciences at Istanbul Technical University, said the North Anatolia Fault is expected to generate a 7.5-magnitude earthquake.

He added, “Serious damage may occur in Istanbul, especially on the coasts facing the Sea of ​​Marmara.”

Focus on urban transformation

With that in mind, the city's disaster preparedness is set to be a major issue ahead of nationwide local elections in March.

Murat Kurum, the mayoral candidate for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, aims to reclaim Istanbul from Imamoglu, the Republican People's Party politician who seized it in 2019.

“We see that the focus of the campaign this time is earthquake and urban transformation,” said Ozer Oz, a board member of the Istanbul Chamber of Civil Engineers.

“However, the earthquake threat to Istanbul has not just appeared. It is a threat that we have felt approaching every day since the 1999 earthquake, and it is increasing day by day.”

Corum served as Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change between 2018 and 2023, a pivotal role in preparing Turkish cities for disasters.

But he was accused of mismanagement after last year's earthquakes.

Critics highlighted the building amnesty during his time in office when more than three million building registration documents were issued across Turkey to those who paid a fine rather than bringing their buildings into compliance with the rules.

But in a wide-ranging list of campaign pledges he made on January 25, Corum promised that he would “not leave any risky building in Istanbul” if elected.

He said that 650,000 new homes will be built during his five-year term, and another 250,000 homes will be renovated through support from homeowners and the private sector.

He accuses the former minister İmamoğlu of subjecting the people of Istanbul to “five wasted years” of mismanagement.

Imamoglu also received criticism from opposition circles. Birol Aydin, of the Saadet Party, accused him of “squandering the opportunity that was presented to him on a golden platter” in 2019.

Ekrem Imamoglu, during the launch of his election campaign, in Istanbul, May 22, 2019. He ran a positive messaging campaign under the slogan “Everything will be very beautiful.” [Lefteris Pitarakis/AP Photo]

“You said that all buildings will be checked for seismic risks,” Aydin said. “However, no municipal employee has visited hundreds of thousands of buildings.”

Meanwhile, Imamoglu says there are 200,000 precarious buildings – housing three million people – that are in urgent need of transformation.

Since winning office five years ago, he has initiated plans to improve the quality of housing in Istanbul, but says his efforts have been hampered by a “disease of partisanship” with the central government blocking funding for improvements.

“Every time we try to contact the minister, we do our best to recommend that seismic risks should be the priority,” he said.

He added: “After February 6, we thought that these proposals and requests would be taken seriously, but unfortunately this was ignored and viewed as a political issue.”

Speaking during a ceremony to hand over the keys to new housing in Kahramanmaras on the anniversary of last year's earthquakes, Erdogan refuted allegations of bias against opposition-led municipalities.

“As a government, we have sent and are sending the share of the budget they should receive to all municipalities, regardless of the party they belong to.”

He added: “The opposition municipalities from Istanbul to Izmir, and from Ankara to Hatay, cannot provide the services they deserve to their cities… and the only reason for this is incompetence, ignorance, and following other calculations.”

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