The rapidly mounting death toll in Turkey after Monday’s twin earthquakes has raised questions over how far poorly enforced building standards, in a country whose economy has long relied on construction to drive growth, have exacerbated the catastrophe.
Turkey has introduced new building codes, requiring new construction to be earthquake resilient, not least following the 1999 Izmit earthquake in which over 17,000 people died, but these have often been loosely enforced in a country where over half of all buildings were put up illegally.
While many experts have pointed to the severity of the two quakes, their relatively shallow depth and the type of quake – generated by a so called strike-slip fault on the Eastern Anatolian Fault – for its destructive power, others have seen evidence of poor construction in some of the deadly building collapses.
“The number one factor is building quality,” Ross Stein, head of catastrophe modelling company Temblor, told Scientific American in the immediate aftermath of the quake.
“It just trumps everything else. Building quality is controlled by a building code and the enforcement of that code. Turkey went through the terrible 1999 Izmit earthquake […] Turkey had modern building codes within a few years of that earthquake.
“So then you say: Well, given that, why do buildings fail? Are these buildings older than 20 years ago? Or were the buildings built in a manner that was not properly reinforced?”
Dr Henry Bang, a geologist and disaster management expert at the Bournemouth University Disaster Management Centre, said: “Some buildings have simply collapsed to the ground while many [multi] storey buildings collapsed like a pack of cards. This shows that most of the buildings did not have the relevant features to provide stability during an earthquake.
“Those whose walls have crumbled to the ground are probably very old buildings that were built with relatively weaker building materials. The [multi] storey buildings that have collapsed like a pack of cards were probably not built with earthquake-resistant design features.”
Prof Ian Main, a professor of seismology and rock physics at the University of Edinburgh, echoed that view. “Looking at some of the pictures of the damaged buildings, it is evident that most of them were not designed to withstand very strong earthquakes. It is clear that many apartment blocks have experience so-called pancake collapse.
“This happens when the walls and floors are not tied together well enough, and each floor collapses vertically down on the one below leaving a pile of concrete slabs with hardly any gaps between. This means that chances of survival for anyone inside are very small.
“There should be seismic codes in place to stop this, but they are not well enough enforced. It is not unusual to see one block standing with little damage, and the one next to it – due to dodgy construction or use of poor materials – completely flattened.”
After a quake in 2011 in which hundreds died, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, blamed poor construction for the high death toll, saying: “Municipalities, constructors and supervisors should now see that their negligence amounts to murder.”
Architects and urban planners in the country have long warned that building codes related to seismic activity are insufficiently enforced and have been undermined by a controversial amnesty for illegal construction – introduced by Erdoğan’s own government – that netted Turkey some $3bn in revenues.
“This extraordinary devastation is perpetuated by the persistence in repeating faulty urban policies and politically charged decisions like the 2018 zoning amnesty law,” said Prof Pelin Pinar Giritlioğlu, president of the Istanbul branch of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects.
At the time of the amnesty, Turkey’s building experts warned that retrospectively licensing illegal buildings for a fee would have fatal consequences.
“It will mean transforming our cities, notably Istanbul, into graveyards and result in coffins emerging from our homes,” said Cemal Gökçe, the chairman of the Chamber of Civil Engineers in 2019.
“Whether it is completely unlicensed, or has more floors than the original plan, they gave an amnesty to all buildings. This is very dangerous,” he said.
Samer Bagaeen, professor of planning and systems resilience, at Kent School of Architecture and Planning, cautioned that even with effective building codes introduced as legislation, people would continue to do what they can get away with unless there was effective enforcement.
“You can have board architects and civil engineers [giving their own recommendations] but the question is whether they are being listened to.
“And there’s a political dimension too. How much aspects of city development are the result of local haggling behind the scenes.”
