Six days after a pair of earthquakes devastated southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, Turkish authorities detained or issued arrest warrants for some 130 people allegedly involved in the construction of buildings that collapsed and buried their occupants.
The death toll in Turkey from Monday's earthquakes reached 33,000 yesterday, with more than 80,000 injured, and there was certainty that it would continue to rise as more bodies were found.
Thousands of buildings collapsed in Türkiye
Although Turkey has building codes that meet current earthquake engineering standards, these protocols are not usually enforced, which explains why thousands of buildings collapsed sideways or upside down on their residents.
On Saturday night, Turkey's Vice President Fuat Oktay said arrest warrants had been issued for 131 people suspected of being responsible for the collapsed buildings.
The Turkish Minister of Justice vowed to punish all those responsible, and the Public Prosecutor's Office began taking samples of construction materials for use as evidence. Although the earthquakes were powerful, victims, experts, and people across Turkey blamed poor construction for exacerbating the devastation.
Contractors arrested after building collapse
According to the private news agency DHA and other media outlets, two contractors accused of destroying several buildings in Adiyaman were arrested at Istanbul Airport on Sunday. The reports indicated that the two were en route to Georgia.
Authorities also arrested two people in Gaziantep province accused of cutting pillars to gain space in a building that collapsed, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
They will create "Earthquake Crime Investigation" offices
The Turkish Ministry of Justice had announced the previous day that "Earthquake Crime Investigation" offices would be formed. These offices would identify contractors and others responsible for construction work, gather evidence, train experts such as architects, geologists, and engineers, and verify building and occupancy permits.
A contractor was arrested Friday at an Istanbul airport before he could board a flight out of the country. He was the contractor for a 12-story luxury building in the historic city of Antioch, in Hatay province, which collapsed and killed an unknown number of people.
The arrests could help direct public discontent toward the builders and contractors and away from local and state officials who allowed the apparently illegal construction to proceed. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was already beset by an economic crisis and runaway inflation, and faces parliamentary and presidential elections in May.
The rescuers have been overwhelmed
The survivors, many of whom lost loved ones, have also directed their frustration and anger toward the authorities. Rescuers have been overwhelmed by the scale of the damage, which has affected roads and airports, further complicating the race against time.
Erdogan admitted this week that the initial response had been hampered by the extent of the damage. He said the worst-affected area in Turkey was about 500 kilometers in diameter and home to 13.5 million people. During a tour on Saturday of cities hit by the earthquakes, Erdogan said a catastrophe of this magnitude was unusual, again describing it as the “disaster of the century.”.
Rescuers, including teams from other countries, continued searching through the rubble, hoping to find more people who might defy the increasingly slim odds of survival. Thermal cameras were used to scan the piles of concrete and metal as rescuers pleaded for silence to listen for the voices of those trapped inside.
Makeshift cemetery on the outskirts of Antioch
On the outskirts of Antioch, a large makeshift cemetery was being prepared. Bulldozers and excavators dug graves in the fields while trucks and ambulances loaded with black body bags arrived in a steady stream. The hundreds of graves, separated by barely a meter, were marked with simple wooden planks nailed vertically to the ground.
The situation was less clear on the other side of the border with Syria.
The death toll in rebel-held northwestern Syria reached 2,166, according to the White Helmets rescue group. The total number of casualties in Syria stood at 3,553 on Saturday, although the figure of 1,387 deaths reported in government-held areas had not been updated for several days.
From the Yucatán Daily, Mexico
