Over 84,000 buildings were damaged by the earthquakes in the country
Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum officially announced that a total of 84,726 buildings were damaged in the February 6 earthquakes that wreaked havoc in 10 provinces in the south of the country. The minister was speaking at the disaster response center in Adana, one of the 10 affected provinces.
Kurum said his ministry’s teams have so far inspected 684,000 buildings in the quake-hit provinces and found 84,726 buildings collapsed, badly damaged or in need of immediate demolition.
He added that more than 7,300 officials have been sent to the provinces to survey the damage, and in Adana alone, 148 buildings are in this category. He urged local residents to stay away from badly damaged buildings due to the risk of collapse, even if they wanted to retrieve their possessions.
Earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that they would start rebuilding new homes in March and that the goal was to finish construction within a year. Kurum told reporters that simultaneous public tenders would be held in early March, and the country’s housing authority TOKI would oversee construction.
He pointed out that more than 1.1 million homes built by the authority have withstood the earthquakes and newly constructed buildings will be just as strong. “We are looking for the best terrain and the best place to prevent destruction in any future earthquakes,” he said.
Although the recent earthquakes have been called the “disaster of the century” due to their sheer scale and unusually high death toll, earthquakes are not uncommon, with thousands of aftershocks occurring across the country. Most of Turkey is located on the Anatolian tectonic plate, which is located between two large plates – the Eurasian and African plates, and a smaller one – the Arabian plate.
As the larger African and Arabian Plates shift, Turkey is literally being squeezed while the Eurasian Plate prevents any northward movement. Thus, Turkey sits on several fault lines. The most dangerous fault line in the country is the North Anatolian Fault Line (NAF), where the Anatolian and Eurasian plates meet. It stretches from the southern part of Istanbul all the way to the northeastern part of the country. Historically, the NAF has caused devastating earthquakes.
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