Turkey ordered an investigation into the "tofu dregs project", the Turkish vice president: will seek justice for the people!
[Global Times Comprehensive Report] As of the 13th local time, the strong earthquake that hit southern Turkey near the Syrian border on the 6th has killed more than 35,000 people in the two countries.
Although the time for the "golden rescue" has passed, the governments of the two countries and the international community have not given up their efforts.
At the same time, construction quality issues have become a major focus as a large number of buildings in Turkey collapsed in the earthquake, resulting in more serious casualties.
According to Turkey's Anadolu News Agency, the Turkish authorities have ordered a thorough investigation on relevant issues.
The Ministry of Justice announced the opening of "Earthquake Crime Investigation Offices" in the 10 affected provinces to investigate the inferior buildings that collapsed during the earthquake, and at the same time issued at least 131 arrest warrants to contractors and engineers suspected of participating in the construction of inferior buildings in the earthquake area.
Turkish Vice President Oktay said that the government will seek justice for the people.
Established "Earthquake Crime Investigation Office"
According to a Reuters report on the 13th, after the earthquake, buildings located on multiple earthquake fault lines showed "pancake-like collapses" and became the focus of attention from the outside world.
Analysts say the collapse is usually linked to poor quality concrete, sometimes mixed with too much water and gravel.
Other factors include that the steel bars are too thin to support the building and weaken the strength of the building.
The US "Politics News Network" quoted Turkish Environment Minister Murat Kurum on the 12th as saying that according to the assessment of more than 170,000 buildings in the earthquake area, nearly 25,000 buildings collapsed or were seriously damaged.
The collapse of the building left a large number of residents buried under the rubble, and criticisms of poor construction quality abounded.
Anadolu News Agency reported on the 12th that among the 10 provinces affected by the disaster in southeastern Turkey, the Turkish Ministry of Justice has authorized nearly 150 local prosecutors' offices to set up "earthquake crime investigation offices" to investigate contractors, architects, geologists, etc. Homeowners, engineers and other personnel related to the collapsed poor-quality buildings, and check the construction permits and land occupation permits to ensure that the responsible persons will not abscond or destroy evidence.
Turkish Vice President Oktay said on the 12th that as of now, 131 suspects have been identified as responsible for the collapse of thousands of buildings in 10 affected provinces, and 114 of them have been detained.
Oktay emphasized: "We will follow up the matter carefully until the necessary judicial procedures are completed, especially to hold accountable the builders of the buildings that suffered serious damage and caused casualties."
Adana province builder Hassan Alpagu was among those arrested.
Anadolu News Agency stated that Alpagu was suspected of cutting corners in contracting local construction projects, and was issued an arrest warrant by the Turkish Ministry of Justice on the grounds of "causing casualties through negligence".
On the 13th, the person was arrested in Northern Cyprus and has been escorted back to Adana Province.
However, some real estate developers and designers argued after being arrested, "The building is fine, but the earthquake was too severe."
An apartment built by a real estate developer trying to flee to Montenegro collapsed in a powerful earthquake, possibly burying more than 1,000 people and damaging nearby buildings, local media reported.
He insisted that he had built many buildings without problems, and believed that the earthquake was so strong that the building collapsed because it was too close to the epicenter, but he added: "I am not an earthquake expert. My guess." Two contractors who were arrested at Istanbul airport after trying to flee to Georgia also insisted they followed building regulations.
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), David Alexander, an expert in emergency planning and management at University College London, believes that the intensity of the earthquake in Turkey is indeed violent, but it does not mean that buildings will collapse. In fact, most areas have not reached The maximum magnitude of the earthquake, "so we can infer that almost none of the buildings that collapsed met reasonable seismic building codes".
According to the BBC, in 2018, Turkey formulated new safety standards for buildings, but they are rarely implemented.
The report quoted a resident of Adana, a city in southern Turkey, as saying that there was a building that collapsed in this earthquake. It was actually damaged by another earthquake 25 years ago, but it has not been properly reinforced and reconstructed.
Why are so many buildings collapsing?
In fact, Turkey's construction industry has been performing well for many years and enjoys a high reputation in the industry.
In the 2020 list of the world's 250 best international contractors published by the world's authoritative publication of civil engineering "Engineering News Record" (ENR), 44 Turkish construction companies were selected, accounting for about 1/5 of the total.
According to data released by the Turkish Construction Contractors Association, from the early 1970s to the end of 2022, Turkish contractors have completed more than 11,605 projects in 133 countries/regions, with an overseas business volume of US$472 billion.
Since 2008, Turkey's real estate industry has developed rapidly, and the market size has continued to grow, becoming one of the country's important pillar industries.
However, the rapid expansion of the market has given some "black-hearted" bosses an opportunity to take advantage of them. In order to grab more profits, they often sacrifice the quality of construction.
In 2011, after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit Van Province in eastern Turkey, Erdogan publicly denounced supervisors as "negligence of duty is equivalent to murder."
However, the regulatory measures introduced by the government over the years have not been implemented.
The Global Times reporter noticed that many of the buildings that collapsed in the earthquake were newly built in recent years.
The BBC mentioned that in Turkey, the government will provide regular "building amnesty" - legally exempting those buildings without safety certificates from fines.
The Turkish government has been doing this since the 1960s.
Critics have long warned that such "amnesty" could spell catastrophe should a major earthquake strike.
As many as 75,000 buildings have received "construction amnesty" in the quake-affected areas of southern Turkey, said Giri Trievlu, head of the Turkish Association of Engineers and Architects.
During the 2020 earthquake in Izmir, Turkey, about 672,000 buildings in the area received "amnesty".
The BBC also quoted the Ministry of Environment and Urban Development at the time as saying that in 2018, more than 50% of buildings in Turkey did not comply with building regulations, equivalent to 13 million houses.
Seenger, a geologist, said that launching a "construction amnesty" in a country with a fault line passing through it is simply a criminal act.
In recent years, the Turkish economy has fallen into the quagmire of currency devaluation, which also laid the groundwork for the tragedy of this earthquake.
Affected by politics, Turkey-U.S. relations and the epidemic, the exchange rate of the Turkish lira against the U.S. dollar has depreciated by more than 50% compared with 2018, which has led to a continuous surge in construction costs. "We're struggling with cost increases," Xin said. Faced with construction cost woes, some developers have delayed project construction, but a few unscrupulous people have taken the crooked idea of cutting corners and materials.
Rescue phase 'coming to an end'
According to a report by Qatar Al Jazeera on the 13th, rescuers are still trying to rescue more survivors from the rubble.
As of that day, the earthquake had killed at least 31,643 people in Turkey and more than 4,500 in Syria.
Agence France-Presse said on the 13th that eight days after the earthquake, rescue teams were shifting their focus from searching for survivors to assisting hundreds of thousands of people who were made homeless by the earthquake.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu issued an appeal to the Turkish people later on the 12th: "Do what you can to send things over, because there are millions of people here, and they all need food." 30,000 tents have been installed in the region, 48,000 people have taken shelter in schools and another 11,500 people have taken shelter in gymnasiums.
According to a Reuters report on the 13th, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Griffiths said that the relief phase of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is "coming to an end" and that the immediate priority is to provide survivors with shelter, food, school education and mental health care. .
The U.N. official also said the U.N. would divert aid from areas controlled by the Syrian government to the northwestern part of the country, also devastated by the deadly quake.
"We have failed the people of NW Syria so far. They feel abandoned and rightfully so. My responsibility and our duty is to right this wrong as soon as possible," Griffiths said on Twitter. A U.N. convoy delivering supplies to northwestern Syria via Turkey has arrived, but more supplies are needed for the millions of Syrian families whose homes have been destroyed.
According to the "Global Times" reporter on the 13th, the second batch of relief supplies from the Red Cross Society of China to Syria arrived in Damascus at noon on the 13th local time. Medicines and other medical supplies can help more than 10,000 people affected by the disaster.
(Source: Global Times)