A man reacts next to rescuers after a deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey February 11, 2023.
Kemal Aslan Reuters
Turkish justice officials are targeting more than 130 people for alleged involvement in reckless and illegal construction methods as rescuers rescued more survivors, including a pregnant woman and two children, six days after a pair of earthquakes toppled thousands of buildings.
The death toll from Monday’s quake that struck southeast Turkey and northern Syria stood at 33,179 on Sunday and is expected to rise as search teams find more bodies in the rubble. Authorities said more than 92,600 others were injured in the disaster.
As despair has also fueled anger at the slow pace of rescue efforts, the focus has shifted to who is to blame for failing to prepare people in earthquake-prone areas that include parts of Syria that have been wracked by years of civil war.
Although Turkey has, on paper, construction codes that meet current earthquake engineering standards, they are rarely enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings have collapsed on their sides or fallen onto residents.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Sunday that 134 people were being investigated for alleged responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the earthquake, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency. He said three were arrested pending trial, seven were detained and seven others were banned from leaving the country.
Bozdag has vowed to punish whoever is responsible, and prosecutors have begun collecting building samples for evidence of materials used in construction. The quake was powerful, but victims, experts and people across Turkey blamed bad construction for adding to the damage.
Authorities at Istanbul Airport on Sunday detained two contractors responsible for destroying several buildings in Adiyaman, DHA news agency and other media reported. The couple reportedly went to Georgia.
Rescuers search for survivors, after a deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, February 10, 2023.
Emilie Madi Reuters
One of the arrested contractors, Yavuz Karakus, told reporters Sunday: “Know that my heart is clean. I built 44 buildings. Four of them were demolished. I did everything according to the rules,” DHA news agency reported.
Two other people were arrested in Gaziantep province on suspicion of cutting columns to make extra room in a collapsed building, the state-run Anadolu Agency said.
A day earlier, the Turkish Minister of Justice announced the planned establishment of the “Earthquake Crime Investigation” bureau. The bureau will identify contractors and others responsible for building work, collect evidence, instruct experts including architects, geologists and engineers, and review building permits and occupancy permits.
The building contractor was detained by authorities on Friday at Istanbul airport before he could board a flight out of the country. He has built a 12-story luxury building called Ronesans Rezidans in the historic city of Antakya, in Hatay province. When it came down, it left many dead. He was officially arrested Saturday.
In a leaked testimony published by Anadolu, the man said that the building followed regulations and that he did not know that the building was not earthquake resistant. His lawyer suggested the public look for a scapegoat.
The arrests could help stoke public anger against builders and contractors, deflecting attention from local and state officials who have allowed seemingly sub-standard construction to go ahead. The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, already burdened by an economic downturn and high inflation, faces parliamentary and presidential elections in May.
Survivors, many of whom have lost loved ones, have turned their frustration and anger toward the authorities as well. Rescue crews have been overwhelmed by the widespread damage that has affected roads and airports, making it even harder to race against the clock.
Erdogan admitted earlier in the week that the initial response had been hampered by extensive damage. He said the most affected area is 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter and is home to 13.5 million people in Turkey. During a tour of the cities damaged by the earthquake, Erdogan said that a disaster of this scope is rare, and again called it the “disaster of the century.”
Rescuers, including crews from other countries, continue to search the wreckage in the hope of finding additional survivors who may still be able to overcome the growing odds. Thermal cameras were used to investigate piles of concrete and metal, while rescuers demanded silence so they could hear the voices of those trapped.
A woman holding a child sits near a collapsed building as the search for survivors continues, following a deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, February 10, 2023.
Umit Bektas Reuters
A pregnant woman was rescued Sunday 157 hours after the earthquake in Hatay province, state broadcaster TRT said.
HaberTurk television broadcast the rescue of a 6-year-old boy who was thrown from the rubble of a house in Adiyaman. The child was wrapped in a space blanket and placed in an ambulance. The exhausted rescuer removed his surgical mask and took a deep breath as the woman was heard crying out in joy.
Turkey’s health minister, Fahrettin Koca, posted a video of a young girl in a navy blue jumper who was rescued. “Good news at hour 150. Rescued a while ago by the crew. There’s always hope!” he tweeted.
Rescue workers pulled out a man in Antakya, hours after hearing voices from under the rubble. Workers said the man, who appeared to be in his late 20s or 30s, was one of nine still trapped in the building. But when asked if he knew of any other survivors, he said he hadn’t heard a voice in three days.
The man slowly waved his hands as he was stretched out on the stretcher as the workers applauded and chanted, “God is great!”
A team of German and Turkish aid workers rescued an 88-year-old woman alive from the rubble in Kirikhan, German news agency dpa reported. Efforts by Italian and Turkish rescue teams also yielded results when they removed a 35-year-old man from the rubble in the city of Antakya. He appeared to be unharmed as he was transported on a stretcher to an ambulance, private television NTV reported.
Overnight, a child was also released in the city of Nizip, in Gaziantep, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported, while a 32-year-old woman was rescued from the rubble of an eight-story building in the city of Antakya. The woman asked for tea as soon as she came out, according to NTV.
In Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter of the first 7.8 earthquake that struck Monday morning, efforts are underway to reach survivors detected by sniffer dogs under a seven-story building, NTV reported.
But those found alive remain a rare exception.
A large makeshift cemetery is being built on the outskirts of Antakya on Saturday. Backhoes and bulldozers dug up bikes in the fields while trucks and ambulances carrying black body bags came steadily. Hundreds of graves, no more than 3 feet (one meter) apart, are marked with simple wooden boards set vertically into the ground.
Hatay airport, whose runway was damaged by the quake, reopened on Sunday, the transport ministry said. That should help get help to the area.
The picture is less clear about the situation on the border in Syria.
Syrians warm by a fire in an emergency shelter for the homeless, near the rebel-held town of Jindayris on February 9, 2023, two days after an earthquake struck Turkey and Syria.
Rami Al Sayed AFP Getty Images
United Nations Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, visiting the Turkish-Syrian border on Sunday, said Syrians had been left “looking for international aid that has yet to come.”
“You have now failed the people in northwestern Syria. They really feel abandoned,” he said, adding, “Our task and obligation is to correct this failure as soon as possible.”
The first UN convoy arrived in northwestern Syria from Turkey on Thursday, three days after the earthquake.
Before that, the only cargo crossing the Bab al-Hawa on the Turkish-Syrian border was a steady stream of corpses of earthquake victims – Syrian refugees who fled the war in their country and lived in Turkey but were killed in Monday’s magnitude 7.8. earthquake – home for burial.
The political dispute has also halted aid convoys sent from northeastern Syria controlled by US-backed Kurdish groups to those controlled by the Syrian government and Turkish-backed rebels who have been fighting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces for years.
The death toll in rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria has reached 2,166, according to the White Helmets rescue worker group. The overall death toll in Syria stood at 3,553 as of Saturday, although the 1,387 deaths reported for government-held areas have not been updated for several days.