Turkey’s most devastating earthquake since 1939 has raised serious questions about whether such a massive tragedy could have been avoided and whether President Erdogan’s government could have done more to save lives.
With elections on the horizon, his future is in jeopardy after 20 years in power and his pleas for national unity have fallen on deaf ears.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan acknowledged the flaws in the response, but he seemed to blame fate for visiting one of the disaster zones: “These things have always happened. It is part of destiny’s plan.”
Turkey sits on two fault lines and has anti-earthquake building regulations over 80 years old. But last Monday’s twin earthquake was much stronger than any since 1939. The first 7.8 magnitude earthquake was recorded at 04:17, followed by another 7.5 dozen miles away.
Delay of search and rescue operations
This required a large-scale rescue operation in 10 of Turkey’s 81 provinces.
But it took time to respond and some villages could not be reached for days. In the end, over 30,000 people from the professional and voluntary sectors arrived, as well as teams from many other countries.
More than 6,000 buildings were destroyed, and workers from Turkey’s Afad emergency department were themselves caught in the quake.
Those first hours were critical, but roads were damaged and search and rescue teams struggled to get through until the second or third day.
Turkey has more experience of earthquakes than any other country, but the founder of a major volunteer rescue group believes politics got in the way this time.
After the last major earthquake in August 1999, it was the armed forces that led the operation, but Erdogan’s government tried to curb their power in Turkish society.
“All over the world, the most organized and materially powerful organizations are the armed forces, they have huge means in their hands,” said the head of the Akut Foundation, Nasukh Mahruki. “So you should use it in case of disaster.”
Instead, the role is now played by the Turkish Civil Disaster Management Authority, which has a staff of 10-15,000, assisted by non-governmental groups such as Akut, which has 3,000 volunteers.
The potential rescue effort was much greater now than in 1999, Mr. Mahrouki said, but because the military was excluded from planning, they had to wait for orders from the government: “This led to a delay in the start of rescue and search operations. “
President Erdogan admitted that search efforts were not as fast as the government wanted, despite Turkey having “the biggest search and rescue team in the world right now”.
“I warned them”
Turks have been warned for years about the potential for a major earthquake, but few expected it to occur along the East Anatolian Fault, which runs through southeastern Turkey, because most of the stronger tremors hit the fault in the north.
When the January 2020 earthquake hit Elazig, northeast of the disaster zone, on Monday, geological engineer Professor Naci Horur of Istanbul Technical University recognized the risk. He even predicted a later earthquake north of Adiyaman and the city of Kahramanmarash.
“I have warned local authorities, governors and the central government. I said, “Please take steps to prepare your cities for an earthquake.” Since we can’t stop them, we have to reduce the damage they do.”
Professor Mustafa Erdik, one of Turkey’s leading seismic experts, believes the dramatic loss of life is due to non-compliance with building codes, which he blames on ignorance and incompetence in the construction industry.
“We allow for damage, but not the type of damage where the floors stack on top of each other like pancakes,” he said. “This should have been prevented and it leads to the kind of casualties that we’ve seen.”
According to Turkish regulations updated in 2018, high-quality concrete must be reinforced with ribbed steel bars. Vertical columns and horizontal beams must be able to absorb shocks.
“There must be a bond between the concrete and the steel rods, and there must be sufficient transition reinforcement in the columns,” Professor Erdik explained.
If all standards were followed, the columns would have been preserved intact, and the damage would have been only on the beams, he believes. Instead, the columns gave way and the floors collapsed on top of each other, causing heavy casualties.
The Minister of Justice said that anyone found to be negligent or guilty will be held accountable.
The secret of the earthquake tax
Critics such as opposition CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu say that after 20 years in power, President Erdogan’s government has not “prepared the country for earthquakes”.
One big question is what happened to the large sums collected through the two “earthquake solidarity taxes” created after the 1999 earthquake. The funds were intended to make the buildings earthquake-resistant.
One of the taxes, still paid by mobile phone, radio and television operators, brought in around 88 billion lira (£3.8 billion; US$4.6 billion) to the state coffers. Two years ago, it was even raised to 10%. But the government never explained where the money was spent.
City planners have complained about the lack of compliance in earthquake zones and point to a government amnesty in 2018 that meant fines could be imposed for breaking building codes, leaving some six million buildings untouched.
The fines brought in billions of Turkish Liras in taxes and fees. But when an apartment building collapsed in Istanbul in 2019, killing 21 people, the head of the Chamber of Civil Engineers said the amnesty would turn Turkish cities into graveyards.
More than 100,000 amnesty applications have been submitted in the 10 cities so far affected, according to Pelin Pinar Giritlioglu of Istanbul University.
“Amnesty played an important role in the destruction of buildings in the last earthquake,” she said.
“We’re not going to get anywhere blaming each other and we have to find solutions,” says Professor Erdik, who believes the problem goes beyond politics and lies in a system that allows engineers to jump straight into practice after university with little experience.
Professor Horur calls for the creation of “earthquake-resistant urban settlements”, but this requires a change in mindset, especially in Turkey’s most populous city.
“We have been warning about a possible earthquake in Istanbul for 23 years. So Istanbul’s politicians must come together and develop policies to make people, infrastructure, buildings and neighborhoods earthquake-resistant.”
Polarized politics
President Erdogan called for unity and solidarity, condemning critics of the disaster response as shameful.
“I cannot tolerate people who run negative campaigns for political interests,” he told reporters in Hatay, near the epicenter of the earthquake.
Many cities in the affected areas are governed by his ruling AKP party.
But after 20 years in power, first as prime minister and then as an increasingly authoritarian, elected president, he presides over a highly polarized country.
“We have come to this because of his policies,” Mr Kilicdaroglu said.
Campaigning for an election scheduled for May has not yet begun, but he leads one of six opposition parties poised to field a single candidate in a bid to oust the president.
Mr. Erdogan’s hopes of reunifying the country ahead of this election are likely to fall on deaf ears.
He has become increasingly intolerant of criticism, and many of his opponents are in prison or have fled abroad. When an attempted coup against the president ended in bloodshed in 2016, he responded by arresting tens of thousands of Turks and firing civil servants.
The economy was in freefall with 57% inflation, leading to a sky-high cost of living.
Among the government’s first actions in response to the earthquake was the temporary blocking of Twitter, which was being used in Turkey to help rescuers find survivors. The government said it was used to spread disinformation, and police detained a political scientist for publishing criticism of the emergency response.
Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, who spent a year in prison in pretrial detention, wrote from exile in Germany that the aftermath of Turkey’s 1999 earthquake helped Erdogan come to power.
This latest disaster will also play a role in the next vote, he said, but it’s not yet clear how.
