The real estate development advertised it as "paradise." That's how they sold a building erected with "the highest construction standards.".
Just a few weeks later, it's rubble. The Rönesans (Renaissance) residence was, until last Monday, one of the most exclusive high-rise developments in the center of the Turkish city of Antioch, the capital of Hatay province: a 12-story building on a 10,500-square-meter site with 249 apartments ranging from two to five bedrooms, a swimming pool, sports courts, and receptionists.
It is estimated that around 1,000 people lived there. Most remain trapped under the rubble of two earthquakes that have already left more than 35,000 dead in Türkiye and Syria.
One of the people missing under the building is Sevtap Karaabdüloglu, a teacher originally from Van, a city in southeastern Turkey.
“She chose that house very deliberately because she knew what an earthquake was like. She had experienced one in Van in 2011 and had to live for months in a camp of prefabricated houses. So, when she came to Antioch (population just over 200,000), after a first year living in a teachers' residence, she searched very carefully and chose Rönesans,” explains her friend and former university classmate Ece Yilmaz by phone from Istanbul. Her husband is in Antioch as a volunteer, trying to help with the rescue efforts.
Both, along with other friends and family members of the victims, have set up a Telegram channel to share information and ask for help.
As in other parts of Hatay province (in the south of the country), emergency teams took more than a day and a half to arrive, although rescuers from the volunteer association AKUT and from Romania and Hungary are now on site. “Seventy-two hours have passed and there are still people alive. Voices are coming from the rubble, but the teams are insufficient. Please share this on all platforms. Let's reach the survivors before they stop breathing,” pleaded one of the members of the social media channel a few days after the disaster.
One of the difficulties with the building is that one of the facades collapsed onto the rest, making it easier to access some of the lower floors and rooms on the side of the collapsed facade, but complicating access on the other side, where the facade has crushed the floors. "It was a very violent collapse," witnesses say.
A company donated a thermal measuring device, which confirmed that there are still survivors under the ruins, although their condition is critical.
—There is a group here that is about to die —explains one of the operators in a video recorded by a volunteer and given to EL PAÍS.
"His [body] temperature has dropped a lot," another replies.
"There are three people. One is there, under the column," another rescuer points out.
—How far away?
—About 35 meters from me.
The low temperatures recorded during the night, of two and three degrees below zero, combined with the lack of food and water and the possible injuries suffered, make survival difficult three days after the earthquake.
In some cases, rescuers have recovered the bodies of people who, despite surviving the collapse of their buildings, had died from hypothermia. “They’ve pulled several people out alive. But we still haven’t heard from Sevtap or her sister, Mehtap. As time goes on, our hopes are fading, but we still want to believe they’re alive,” Yilmaz says through tears.
Theoretically, and according to the financial newspaper Dünya, the construction of the Rönesans apartments was done on a floating foundation, which withstands seismic activity better.
Construction began in 2012 and was completed in 2013, so it was required to include all the seismic safety measures mandated by law. Precisely for this reason, in addition to its facilities and location, it was a popular choice for people from outside the province who came to work for a few months or years in Antioch, such as teachers, engineers, or even footballers. Ghanaian midfielder Christian Atsu, who played for Málaga and Chelsea and now plays for Hatayspor, was one of its residents. He is currently missing.
Amnesties on construction standards
There are more examples of buildings constructed in recent years, as recently as 2018 and 2019, that have collapsed in Hatay province, and also in other regions of the Eurasian country.
In an interview with the British network BBC, the president in Istanbul of the Union of Chambers of Engineers and Urban Planners, Pelin Pinar Giritlioglu, estimated that up to 75,000 buildings in the area affected by the earthquake had received “amnesties”.
In other words, in exchange for a fine, they were allowed to remain standing even though inspections had determined that they did not meet the construction or earthquake protection standards stipulated by law. Even the Ministry of Urban Planning itself acknowledged in 2018 that half of all buildings in Turkey were non-compliant with regulations.
But these amnesties continue to be granted, especially in the pre-election period. In fact, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced one ahead of the elections next May.
The builders of Rönesans, the brothers Mehmet Yaşar Coşkun and Hüseyin Yalçın Coşkun, are also missing.
But not under the rubble. The websites and phone lines linked to his offices have been disconnected, as EL PAÍS was able to confirm. A former partner, an architect, explained to this newspaper that he does not know his whereabouts and that the last work he is aware of was a business promoting investment and obtaining citizenship in Montenegro, with offices in Istanbul.
A former accountant for the company told the Turkish news outlet ArtiGerçek that the last time she spoke with Hüseyin Yalçin Coşkun, he was in Montenegro. No one has been able to contact them since the earthquake.
Source: La Nación
