Two days after a devastating earthquake occurredTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited and explained one of the worst affected areas that it “was not possible to be prepared for such a catastrophe”.
Certainly the extent of the destruction was unforeseen. The death toll from the February 6, 2023 earthquakes that struck Turkey and northern Syria continues to rise. But a week later it was documented over 35,000 people were killedwith more than 50,000 injured and over 1,000,000 get help to survive in bitterly cold conditions. The 7.7 magnitude quake struck while many were sleeping in the town of Pazarcık in Kahramanmaraş in southern Turkey – the epicenter of the quake. Nine hours later, a large aftershock followed in Elbistan, a town about 50 miles from the first tremor, which completely collapsed buildings that had been weakened by the first tremor.
The final death toll is expected to place these two consecutive earthquakes among the worst natural disasters on record anywhere in the world.
The sobering question to us, as a disaster mitigation scientistwhether this tremendous loss of life, homes and livelihoods could have been avoided. There is no way to prevent an earthquake, but what can be prevented – or at least contained – is the magnitude of the catastrophe caused by these inevitable tremors.
In our view, any suggestion that a country cannot be “prepared” for an earthquake of the magnitude that has struck Turkey and northern Syria is a political statement — that is, it reflects political decisions rather than science. In Turkey, the lack of preparedness stands in sharp contrast to the known seismic risks the country faces.
Missed Opportunities
According to the Earthquake hazard map Turkeyrevised and published in 2018, almost all of Turkey is prone to seismic risk, with two significant fault lines – the East Anatolian Fault Zone and the North Anatolian Fault Zone– all over the country.
The North Anatolian Fault, 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) long, runs east-west through the northern half of the country, threatening the major cities of Ankara, the country’s capital, and Istanbul, and threatening the most industrialized part of the country. The East Anatolian Fault, about 620 miles (nearly 1,000 kilometers) long, runs diagonally through the southeastern part of the country. It covers an area with smaller towns and villages, but millions of people are at risk in the region.
Turkey has made repeated efforts to address this fundamental seismic risk. 1959, The Turkish Parliament passed the Disaster Law 7269, Prepare a plan to introduce disaster risk reduction regulations at the national, provincial and municipal levels. The law raised awareness to some extent, but five major earthquakes in the 1990s shattered any expectations that existing precautionary measures were sufficient to protect the growing population from death and destruction.
After the devastating 1999 earthquake in the Marmara region in north-western Turkey — where more than 17,000 people have died — the Turkish government embarked on a major rehabilitation and reconstruction program to strengthen building codes and improve coordination between jurisdictions. However, this ambitious program was hampered by chronic Corruption and weak implementation the building regulations.
The Turkish government also levied an “earthquake tax” after the 1999 disaster, ostensibly to raise funds to better prepare the country for future earthquakes. Since it was passed, a an estimated $4.6 billion was raised by the levy. But there are serious questions above how the money was spent.
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