In view of the rapid rise of urban populations over twenty years, the earthquake risk in our cities is even higher than it was. That is, the people’s need for safe and healthy housing has become more urgent and vital compared to before.
İhsan Çaralan
While on the one hand huge social tragedies ensue from the likes of the economic crisis, the pandemic that is a whole lot more than a health crisis, cataclysmic natural events that with human effort become disasters and the wholesale slaughter that work manslaughter has become, on the other they take the system’s MR. In this way, the ruling forces’ veil with which they shroud the truth lifts baring realities to the naked eye.
The Izmir earthquake, in the country’s third largest city and despite being 150 kilometres from the centre of the earthquake, has brought home with the destruction it has wrought the anti-people character of the system, from “urban regeneration” turning into “graft regeneration” and planning amnesties granted for votes to the degree the power holders’ partisanship has assumed.
Ever since the 17 August 1999 North Marmara earthquake that also shook Istanbul, in the talk of “earthquake preparedness” following each earthquake that caused serious loss of life and property just about everyone appeared to be on the same page that this needed to be premised on:
- Turkey being an earthquake country,
- The need for the “inventory of buildings” to be renewed in keeping with Turkey’s realities,
- The need for the means afforded by science and technology to be used correctly with a gung-ho spirit,
- The importance of having a serious budget for earthquake preparedness, and
- Town planning in which urban regeneration is based on safety of life and property rather than contractors’ profits and creates safe, healthy and accessible housing.
However, the 24 January Elazığ-Malatya earthquake and now the Izmir earthquake have clearly shown that not a single positive reply can be elicited from the question, “What has been done in terms of earthquake preparedness over twenty-one years?” In fact, forward-looking steps had been taken in this area, such as amending the “buildings regulation” to make earthquake-resistant buildings compulsory and introducing an “earthquake tax” so that an “independent budget” would be created for earthquake preparedness purposes. However, these steps were thwarted by the AKP administration through assigning building inspection work to private companies, channelling earthquake tax into the general budget and turning urban regeneration into graft regeneration.
Moreover, in view of the rapid rise of urban populations over twenty years, the earthquake risk in our cities is even higher than it was. That is, the people’s need for safe and healthy housing has become more urgent and vital compared to before.
It is beyond debate that the AKP rule of eighteen years bears the lion’s share of the responsibility for “earthquake preparedness.” However, the Erdoğan-AKP administration is acting with even greater partiality to conceal its own responsibility. We saw this in the Elazığ earthquake with entry denied by provincial governors to aid convoys coming from surrounding provinces and sub-provinces and aid teams coming from CHP municipalities being harassed and prevented from participating in search and rescue activities.
The AKP, unable to prevent aid coming from other provinces, has taken this modus operandi a stage further by eliminating the participation of the Chamber of Civil Engineers, the most directly interested party in the matter, having rejected the Chamber of Civil Engineers’ Izmir Branch’s request to “take part in damage detection efforts.” Just like they prevented the Turkish Medical Association Chair and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipal Mayor from participating in the meeting on fighting the pandemic in Istanbul!
The power holders are thus, on the one hand, aiming to keep the graft from “graft regeneration” free from interference by preventing involvement in the process of an expert body not under its control in the field of “earthquake preparedness” and, on the other, showing that they will continue their endeavours to discredit the Turkish Medical Association, Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects and other professional organizations.
Speaking to our reporter Ramis Sağlam, Chamber of Geological Engineers Izmir Branch Chair Alim Murathan, stating, “The area that underwent destruction had nothing to do with the fault line and it had entirely to do with the ground,” pointed out that those who had made this building there had turned the natural event of an earthquake into a disaster.
Experts who examined the destroyed buildings following the earthquake also pointed to serious deficiencies such as the use of sea sand in construction, the quality of the concrete and the non-compliance with standards of the iron bars used.
Seemingly, a great many people and entities from contractors to inspectors and those with varying degrees of responsibility in local and central authorities have gone to great pains for an earthquake 150 kilometres away to cause a complete disaster in Izmir’s Bayraklı sub-province!
Those who have paid a modicum of attention to the “earthquake-related discussion” of the past twenty-one years know that the controversy over earthquakes revolves around the same information, the same advice and the same promises! The first compelling conclusion to be taken away from this discussion is that we must devote our basic attention to the degree of earthquake preparedness in existence and the extent to which governments and local authorities do that which is incumbent on them, and hold to account for that which is left undone! For, if we do not react in this way and wage the struggle this calls for, we can have no doubt that we will carry on discussing the same problems for ten or twenty more years ahead of us, but will be unable to take a step forward.
So, not words, but the struggle of the people for safe and healthy housing will act as the catalyst for the “earthquake preparedness” struggle.
The Izmir earthquake has pointed once more and more egregiously to the urgency and vitality of such a struggle!
(Translated by Tim DRAYTON)
Ceren Sözeri
Yusuf Karadaş
Aras Coşkuntuncel