- Jake Horton – William Armstrong
- Fact-checking section – media follow-up, BBC
Anger is growing in Turkey because lax enforcement of standards contributed to the collapse of many buildings in the recent earthquake, which claimed thousands of lives in that country.
The BBC has verified examples of newly built buildings that collapsed in the recent disaster.
One of the buildings in Malatya (shown below) was completed last year, and footage has gone viral on social media of an announcement saying it was “completed according to the latest earthquake regulations”.
This building was said to comply with the latest earthquake resistance regulations
The advertisement stated that all materials used in the construction were of “first class quality”.
There is no trace of this advertisement now, but a number of people took photos and videos and posted them online. The advertisement also matches the pattern used on the company’s website.
I took pictures of another recently completed building in the coastal city of Iskenderun, which was largely destroyed.
Before and after: A newly built residential building in Iskenderun
A construction company that built this building posted a photo showing that it was completed in 2019.
The BBC has verified that the photo of the destroyed building (on the right) matches the location of the company’s advertising photo (on the left).
We have contacted the relevant construction company for comment, and have not yet received a response.
Another building that opened in Antakya in 2019 can be seen largely destroyed, in a photo verified by the BBC.
image copyright Twitter
The Göklu Bahçe complex in Antakya was badly damaged in the earthquake
We found a video from the opening ceremony of the residential complex in November 2019, in which Servet Altas, the owner of Ser-Al Construction, the executing company of the project, says: “The Göklü Bahçi project is particularly special, compared to other projects in terms of its location and construction quality.”
“Of the hundreds of buildings I built in Hatay, unfortunately, two have collapsed,” Mr. Altas said in response to the BBC.
He adds that the earthquake was so strong that almost no building in the city was left untouched.
“We are painfully witnessing how some media organizations change perceptions and choose scapegoats under the guise of coverage,” he said.
Although the quake was strong, experts say properly constructed buildings should have remained standing.
“The maximum strength of this earthquake was violent, but not necessarily enough to demolish well-constructed buildings,” says David Alexander, professor of emergency planning and management at University College London.
“In most places, the level of shaking was below the maximum level, so we can conclude that out of the thousands of buildings that collapsed, the majority did not measure up to any reasonably expected earthquake resistance standard.”
Failure to apply Standards Building
Turkey has tightened construction standards in the wake of previous disasters, most recently in 2018.
It also applied stricter safety standards in the aftermath of the 1999 earthquake, in the vicinity of the northwestern city of Izmit, in which 17,000 people were killed.
The latest rules require the use of high-quality concrete reinforced with steel bars in building structures in earthquake-prone areas. Columns and overhangs must also be distributed to effectively absorb the impact of earthquakes.
However, those laws were poorly enforced.
“Part of the problem is that retrofits to existing buildings are not adequately applied, let alone to new building standards,” says Professor Alexander.
In Japan, another highly earthquake-prone country, there are very strict building standards. Building safety requirements vary depending on the use of the building and its proximity to areas most at risk of earthquakes.
What is the reason for non-compliance with the standards?
The Turkish government has periodically issued “construction amnesties” – legal exemptions from paying the fine – to those buildings built without the required safety certifications. It has passed those waivers since the 1960s (most recently in 2018).
Critics have long warned that these amnesties could lead to disaster, in the event of a major earthquake.
More than 75,000 buildings across the quake-affected area in southern Turkey have been granted construction amnesty, according to Pelin Pinar Geretlioglu, head of the Istanbul Chambers of Engineers and City Planners Association.
A few days before the latest disaster, Turkish media reported that a new draft law was awaiting parliamentary approval, which would grant an additional amnesty for recent construction work.
Geological expert Celal Senghor said earlier this year that passing such a building amnesty in a country riven by fault lines amounted to a “crime”.
And after a devastating earthquake struck the western province of Izmir in 2020, a BBC (Turkish Service) report found that 672,000 buildings in Izmir benefited from the latest amnesty.
That same report noted that, in 2018, the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning stated that more than 50 percent of buildings in Turkey—the equivalent of nearly 13 million buildings—were constructed in breach of standards.
The BBC contacted the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning to comment on construction standards in the country after the recent earthquake, and the response came: “No building built by our administration fell. Damage assessment studies are continuing quickly in this area.”
