Earthquakes Happen In Turkey

You probably heard about the giant 7.2 magnitude quake that hit the eastern Turkish city of Van a couple weeks ago, killing roughly 600 people. Well, there was an encore yesterday, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake knocked over 25 buildings, killed a least 8, and wounded at least 20. One of the buildings, the popular Bayram Hotel, was "at least 40 years old, and had been renovated last year." To make matters worse, there were violent clashes between police and protesters upset at the lack of the government's earthquake preparedness.

In Berkeley, where I've lived most of my life, all buildings are under strict code for earthquake preparation; buildings are designed to withstand a sizable amount of disturbance in the event of a quake. It would be illegal for a building not to meet earthquake standards, especially if it had been recently renovated. Turkey's buildings are not up to code, not from what I saw while living in Istanbul. In my neighborhood of Bahçeşehir there was a big surge in construction of rectangular, cinder block apartment complexes - mine, built 2 years ago, was 12 stories high. In the event of an earthquake like that in Van, Bahçeşehir would crumble.

The good news is that Turkish authorities are working on new disaster measures. The bad news is that those measures probably won't have anything to do with bringing buildings up to code, instead focusing on "evacuating settlements in areas of high risk and offering residents new homes built by state-run construction company TOKİ [the company that built the apartment complex I lived in] through long-term payment schedules." In other words, Turkey isn't going to try and build better earthquake-safe buildings and minimize the damage done. It's just going to improve efficiency for the clean-up.

It is clear that earthquakes happen in Turkey. There have been three quakes larger than 4.7 in Turkey since October 23rd when the huge 7.2 quake hit and 1,400 "smaller tremors." To prevent deaths and injuries caused by earthquakes, Turkey needs to construct smarter buildings in addition to having an efficient evacuation plan.