ANTAKYA, Turkey
Turkish authorities are
targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed in the powerful Feb. 6 earthquakes as
rescuers found more survivors in the rubble Sunday, including a pregnant woman
and two children, in the disaster that killed over 33,000 people.An excavator driver waits for a rescue team to recover the body of an earthquake victim from a collapsed building in Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Sunday, February 12, 2023
The death toll from the
magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes that struck nine hours apart in southeastern
Turkey and northern Syria rose to 33,185 and was certain to increase as search
teams find more bodies.
As despair bred rage at the
agonizingly slow rescues, the focus turned to assigning blame.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir
Bozdag said 131 people were under investigation for their alleged
responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the
quakes. While the quakes were powerful, many in Turkey blame
faulty construction for multiplying the devastation.
Turkey’s construction codes
meet current earthquake-engineering standards, at least on paper, but they are
rarely enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings toppled over or pancaked
down onto the people inside.
Among those facing scrutiny were two people arrested in Gaziantep province on suspicion of cutting down columns to make extra room in a building that collapsed, the state-run Anadolu Agency said. The justice ministry said three people were arrested, seven others were detained and another seven were barred from leaving Turkey.
Two contractors held
responsible for the destruction of buildings in Adiyaman were arrested Sunday
at Istanbul Airport while trying to leave the country, the private DHA news
agency and other media reported. One detained contractor, Yavuz Karakus, told DHA:
“My conscience is clear. I built 44 buildings. Four of them were demolished. I
did everything according to the rules.”
Rescuers reported finding
more survivors amid increasingly long odds. Thermal cameras were used
as crews demanded silence to hear those trapped.
In hard-hit Hatay province, a
50-year-old woman who appeared badly injured was carried out by crews in the
town of Iskenderun. Similar rescues in the province saved two other women, one
of them pregnant, according to broadcasters TRT and HaberTurk.
HaberTurk showed a 6-year-old
boy rescued from his wrecked home in Adiyaman. An exhausted rescuer removed his
surgical mask and took deep breaths as several women cried in joy.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca
posted a video of a young girl in a navy blue jumper who was found alive.
“There is always hope!” he tweeted.
Rescuers in Antakya, elsewhere
in Hatay province, pulled a man in his late 20s or 30s from the rubble, saying
he was one of nine trapped in the building. He waved weakly as he was removed
on a stretcher as workers applauded and chanted, “God is great!”
German and Turkish workers
rescued an 88-year-old in Kirikhan, German news agency dpa reported. Italian
and Turkish rescuers found a 35-year-old man in Antakya who appeared unscathed,
private NTV television reported.
A child was freed overnight in
the town of Nizip, in Gaziantep, state-run Anadolu Agency said, while a 32-year
woman was found in a wrecked eight-story building in Antakya and asked for tea
when she emerged, according to NTV.
Those were the rare
exceptions.
Backhoes and bulldozers prepared a large cemetery in Antakya’s outskirts as trucks and ambulances brought a steady stream of black body bags. Hundreds of graves were marked with simple wooden planks.
Hatay’s airport reopened
Sunday after its runway was repaired, and military and commercial planes
ferried in supplies and will take away evacuees.
There are 34,717 Turkish
personnel involved in rescue efforts. On Sunday, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said
they were joined by 9,595 personnel from 74 countries, with more on the way.
In the Syrian capital of
Damascus, the head of the World Health Organization warned that the pain will
ripple forward, calling the disaster an “unfolding tragedy that’s affecting
millions.”
“The compounding crises of
conflict, COVID, cholera, economic decline, and now the earthquake have taken
an unbearable toll,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Tedros said WHO experts were
waiting to enter northwestern Syria “where we have been told the impact is even
worse.”
U.N. Under-Secretary-General
for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, visiting the Turkish-Syrian border
Sunday, said Syrians are “looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”
“We have so far failed the
people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” he said, adding, “My
duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”
In the town of Atareb, in
opposition-run northern Aleppo province, Abdel-Haseeb Abdel-Raheem returned
Sunday to his ruined four-story building to try to salvage any valuables but
could find only blankets, pillows and some clothes. His aunt and her husband
died there, but their three children survived.
With no international rescue
efforts in the war-battered region, the 34-year-old had to recover the bodies
himself.
“You can’t hear someone inside
screaming and sit tight. You can’t sit still. You can’t have the heart to hear
someone (crying for help) and you do nothing,” he said, sitting above a mound
of debris.
Political disputes have held
up aid convoys sent from areas of northeast Syria controlled by U.S.-backed
Kurdish groups to those controlled by the Syrian government and by
Turkish-backed rebels who have fought with the Kurdish groups over the years.
A U.N. aid convoy sent to
northwestern Syria through government-held areas was postponed due to
obstruction from Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, an al-Qaida affiliated group ruling
Idlib province, a U.N. spokesperson told The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, U.N. aid convoys
continue to cross from Turkey into northwestern Syria through the Bab al-Hawa
border crossing. The first U.N. convoy only reached northwest Syria from Turkey
on Thursday, three days after the disaster struck.
Before that, it was only a
steady stream of bodies coming through Bab al-Hawa: Syrian refugees who had
fled the civil war and settled in Turkey but died in the disaster, being
returned home for burial.
The earthquake death toll in
Syria’s northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the
rescue group the White Helmets. The overall death toll in Syria stood at 3,553
on Saturday, although the 1,387 deaths reported for government-held parts of
the country hadn’t been updated in days. Turkey’s death toll was 29,605 as of
Sunday.
Turkey’s Justice Ministry
announced the establishment of Earthquake Crimes Investigation bureaus to
identify contractors and others responsible for building works. It would gather
evidence; instruct experts including architects, geologists and engineers; and
check building permits and occupation permits.
A contractor was detained
Friday at Istanbul airport before he could leave the country. He built a luxury
12-story building called Ronesans Rezidans in Antakya, and when it fell, it
killed an untold number. He was formally arrested Saturday.
In leaked testimony published
by Anadolu, the man said the building followed regulations and he did not know
why it didn’t stay standing. His lawyer suggested his client was a scapegoat.
Under programs that allowed
building owners to pay fines instead of bringing them up to code, the
government agency responsible for enforcement acknowledged in 2019 that over
half of all buildings in Turkey — accounting for some 13 million apartments—
were not in compliance.
The detentions could help
direct public anger toward builders and contractors, deflecting it from local
and state officials who allowed apparently substandard construction to
proceed. President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, already burdened by an economic downturn
and high inflation, faces parliamentary and presidential elections in May.
The nongovernmental business
organization TURKONFED estimated the earthquake damage at $84.1 billion, based
on statistics from the devastating 1999 quake in northwestern Turkey, including
$70.1 billion in housing and $10.4 billion to gross domestic product.
Rescue crews have been
overwhelmed by the widespread damage that has affected roads and airports,
making it even harder to move quickly.
Erdogan acknowledged the
initial response was hampered by the damage, with the worst-affected area 500
kilometers (310 miles) in diameter and home to 13.5 million. During a tour
Saturday, Erdogan said such a tragedy was rare, referring to it as the
“disaster of the century” in multiple speeches.
In New York City, mourners
gathered Saturday at a mosque to remember a family of four from the borough of
Queens who were killed while visiting relatives in Turkey. The Council on
American-Islamic Relations said Burak and Kimberly Firik and their sons, aged 1
and 2, died in the disaster. - AP
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