Turkish Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdag said today, Saturday, that 184 people were arrested on charges of negligence in the files of the buildings that collapsed due to the earthquake that struck the south of the country, and among the detainees was a mayor, while efforts continue to remove the rubble of the buildings destroyed by the earthquake in Syria.

The Turkish Minister of Justice stated that arrest warrants had been issued against dozens of contractors and building inspection officials in the earthquake-stricken cities in the south of the country.

And the Turkish Anatolia News Agency stated that among those arrested was Okkesh Kawak, the mayor of Nordag in Gaziantep province, after he was subjected to investigations into the circumstances of the collapse of buildings as a result of the earthquake.

And the Anadolu Agency correspondent stated that the security authorities arrested Kawak - today, Saturday - as part of an investigation by the Public Prosecution Office about a collapse in the municipality of Nurdağı.

The agency added that the two buildings were built when Kawak was the contractor supervising their construction, according to the Public Prosecution’s report.

Contractors are also among the detainees.

According to the Turkish government, more than 173,000 buildings in 11 provinces have been destroyed or damaged.

The Turkish minister said that 179 people were arrested on charges of looting during the earthquake.


Damage assessment

And Turkish Environment Minister Murat Corum said that his government had accomplished about 80 to 90% of the efforts to inspect the damage resulting from the earthquake.

He stressed that 90% of the buildings in the affected areas either collapsed or suffered significant damage.

On February 6, a double earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, the first measuring 7.7 degrees and the second 7.6 degrees, followed by thousands of severe aftershocks, killing tens of thousands, most of them in southern Turkey, in addition to massive destruction.

Earlier today, the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center said that a new earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale shook central Turkey today, Saturday.

The center, which specializes in seismological monitoring, added that the new earthquake occurred at a depth of 10 km.

In turn, the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD) said that this earthquake had a magnitude of 5.3, and it shook the state of Nigde, in the center of the country.

The new earthquake comes hours after the announcement of another 4.2-magnitude earthquake that hit Kahramanmaraş, the epicenter of the devastating February 6 earthquake.

On Friday, AFAD confirmed that two earthquakes measuring 4.7 degrees occurred in the states of Sivas (central) and Malatya (south).

She added that while the process of removing rubble from the states affected by the earthquake continues, more than half a million citizens have been evacuated from the affected areas to safer areas.


ready homes

In the province of Adiyaman, the construction of prefabricated house cities, designated for the earthquake victims, continues. The authorities are building 20 prefabricated house cities comprising 15,000 houses, and 18 house cities will be built in the city center and two in its countryside.

Infrastructure construction work has been completed in most of the prefabricated cities.

In the province of Hatay, the Turkish Ministry of Defense said today, Saturday, in a tweet that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) continues to work to build a city of prefabricated houses in the city of Iskenderun.

Earlier, the alliance announced its readiness to send 1,000 prefabricated houses to the victims of the earthquake in Turkey.

And Anatolia Agency stated that the Turkish Togba Akdag, 36, lost 70 of her relatives in the Adiyaman region, and said that she was accompanying her mother, who was undergoing treatment at the Adiyaman Teaching and Research Hospital of Adiyaman University during the earthquake.

The situation in Syria

The Syrian Civil Defense teams in a number of towns west of Idlib continue to remove rubble and cracked concrete blocks from buildings that were damaged by the earthquake that hit the area on the sixth of this month.

As part of our response to those affected by the earthquake in northwestern #Syria, our teams worked to help move the remains and raw materials and spread them to be the floor of a camp for earthquake survivors in the city of Jenderes, north of #Aleppo.# The White Helmets #Earthquake_Syria pic.twitter.com/hMVmHIKpmn

- Syrian Civil Defense (@SyriaCivilDefe) February 25, 2023

The Support Coordination Unit in the Syrian opposition areas said that 137 towns and cities in the northwest of the country were affected as a result of the earthquake, and that hundreds of thousands of residents will remain homeless for a long time.

According to the statistics of the Civil Defense, the collapse of more than 550 buildings has been documented in northern Syria, while more than 1,570 buildings have been partially damaged.

These statistics are not included