Turkey's construction regulations under scrutiny after earthquake

Regulators under suspicion due to number of new and recently built buildings that collapsed

Collapsed buildings in the Islahiye district of Gaziantep, south-eastern Turkey on February 13, 2023. EPA

Follow the latest news on the earthquake in Turkey and Syria

The images of horror emerging from south-east Turkey and northern Syria in recent days predominantly feature a background of flattened and mangled buildings.

While some observers say the seismic activity that resulted in last week's earthquake is a once-in-a-thousand-year event, experts believe recent changes in Turkish government construction standards and "zoning amnesties" may have contributed to millions of people living in unsafe buildings.

Since the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, the country has undergone an enormous, nationwide urbanisation in which billions of dollars was spent on infrastructure projects such as high-rise tower blocks that drew more and more residents into large metropolitan areas.

The vast construction and modernisation drive, however, may have resulted in corners being cut.

About half of Turkey’s 13 million buildings do not meet construction regulations, the country’s Environment and Urbanisation Ministry says.

In 2018, the government issued a zoning amnesty allowing property owners to register their illegally constructed buildings in return for a fee. About 1.8 million applications were approved, with the government receiving more than $3 billion in taxes and registration charges in return.

The following year, an expert quoted by Reuters said he feared the move would turn Turkish cities “into graveyards and result in coffins emerging from our homes”.

Four years on, these exact scenes are playing out in Hatay, Gaziantep and elsewhere in the south-east, where about 6,500 buildings are thought to have collapsed as a result of the earthquake.

“Municipalities do not audit new buildings very often, it’s the same problem across all Turkey,” says Pelin Pinar Giritlioglu, president of the Istanbul Branch of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects.

“In small cities and small provinces, it is even more of a problem because the relationships [between local authorities and construction companies] are closer than in big cities, so often, public institutions overlook these kinds of deficiencies because of their close connections.”

On Twitter, users posted video clips of apparently new or recently built high-rise buildings partially collapsing as the concrete base cracked and gave way.

“This means that the government deemed them legal,” says Ms Giritlioglu.

Since 1940, Turkey has initiated 10 sets of earthquake regulations and was one of the first countries to adopt such laws.

Efforts have been made to construct earthquake-mitigating buildings, such as Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport terminal. Government figures quoted by Turkish media last year claimed that three million buildings had been “renewed” to withstand damaging seismic activity.

Others say the sheer magnitude of the earthquake February 6 should not be underplayed.

“There hadn’t been an equivalent-strength earthquake in this region for 900 years,” says Mustafa Erdik, president of the Turkish Earthquake Foundation.

“It was comparable with the San Francisco earthquake of 1906", which destroyed 80 per cent of that city.

The ruined city of Antakya after the earthquake - in pictures

Syrians huddled around a fire in a shelter in Antakya, Turkey. AP

Rescuers stretcher away Ece Koseoglu, 25, after being removed from under the rubble of a collapsed building. AFP

A man walks past the rubble of a destroyed building. AFP

Cranes remove debris next to destroyed buildings in Antakya. AP

Volunteers cook for Syrians at a shelter in Antakya. AP

Rescuers search in the rubble of destroyed buildings in Antakya. AP

Rescue workers sent by Bern to Turkey pull earthquake victims out alive. AFP

People warm up with fire in front of destroyed buildings. AP

A man uses a lantern to check damaged buildings. Reuters

A destroyed building in Antakya. AP Photo

Moreover, local and regional conflicts that sprung up over the past decade may also have contributed to the huge loss of life unfolding this week.

In 2015 and 2016, thousands of people were displaced from their homes in cities such as Cizre and Nusaybin, as well as the Sur district of Diyarbakir, as a result of fighting between the Turkish military and Kurdish armed groups. This resulted in an increased demand for accommodation and other infrastructure largely in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey.

In the province of Antakya, the Turkish region worst hit by the earthquake, local authorities and communities a decade ago found themselves facing the prospect of adding housing for the hundreds of thousands of Syrians displaced by the conflict across the border.

About 500,000 Syrians arrived in each of Gaziantep and Sanliurfa, adding to the heavy demand for housing and associated infrastructure.

With metro populations of about two million each, Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa and Gaziantep are comparable in size to Copenhagen, Prague or Las Vegas, and now face an emergency response and rebuilding effort of a scale not seen anywhere in the world for perhaps decades.

What’s more, experts say the disaster doesn’t begin and end only in the cities.

“There are 13 million people living in this geography [region]," says Ms Giritlioglu.

“And we know nothing about what is happening in the rural areas yet."

The brother of a survivor Gokhan Ugurlu, 35, who was pulled out of the rubble in Hatay, Turkey, reacts as a rescuer looks on. Reuters

A woman walks past flattened buildings in a street in Hatay province, Turkey. Reuters

A member of the army stands amid rubble in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Reuters

A man reacts while sitting outside a tent of a temporary accommodation centre set up on a football pitch in Gaziantep, Turkey. Reuters

Earthquake survivors walk on a street in Hatay, Turkey. Reuters

A White Helmets volunteer holds a rescued cat in the rebel-held town of Jandaris, Syria. Reuters

A Syrian boy, who lost his family in the deadly earthquake, stands amid the rubble of his family home in Jindayris. AFP

Rescuers sit by a bonfire in Hatay, Turkey. AFP

A Turkish soldier walks among destroyed buildings in Hatay. AFP

Relatives of Palestinian doctor Yusuf Darabeh, who died when the earthquake hit Turkey, comfort each other. AP Photo

People stand by a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey. AP Photo

A child, injured in the earthquake, is treated at hospital in Bab Al Hawah, Syria. AP Photo

Vehicles containing aid from Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) on the Iraqi side of the Iraq-Syria border. Reuters

Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after five days under the rubble in Antakya, Turkey. AP

Romanian firefighters load a Turkey-bound train with emergency aid near Bucharest. AP

Collapsed buildings in Jandaris, Syria. Reuters

Abdulkerim Nano, 67, is rescued after five days under the rubble in in Kahramanmaras, Turkey

A Turkish rescue worker checks a collapsed building in Adiyaman. AP

Rescuers in Adiyaman, Turkey. AP

A resident in front of his collapsed building in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras. AFP

Syrian refugees shelter in a public market in the Islahiye district of Gaziantep, Turkey. AP

A family wait for the bodies of their relatives to be recovered in Antakya, Turkey. AP

A woman plays with a sniffer dog in Antakya, Turkey. AP

Collapsed buildings in Antakya, Turkey. AP

A Syrian woman takes care of her nephew Hasan Goayid, eight, in Islahiye district, Gaziantep. AP

A Syrian child in a tent in the Islahiye district. AP

Collapsed buildings in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras. AFP

Emirati rescuers sift through the rubble of a collapsed building in the regime-controlled town of Jableh, northwest of the Syrian capital. AFP

Volunteers at the Emirates Red Crescent 'Bridges of Goodness' campaign at the South Hall, Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City. Leslie Pableo for The National

Martin Griffiths, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, in Maras, Turkey. Reuters

Rescuers give water to a dog after a rescue operation in Hatay, southern Turkey. AP

A deadly earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6. EPA

Fissures from the earthquake have crumpled the highway near Islahiyeh in Southern Turkey. Matt Kynaston / The National

A Kurdish charity's aid convoy enters Syria through the Bab Al Salama crossing with Turkey, in the northern province of Aleppo. AFP

A rescuer with a sniffer dog searches in a destroyed building in Antakya, southern Turkey. AFP

A makeshift camp erected in a stadium in the city of Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey. EPA

A woman mourns Turkish Cypriot victims of the earthquake, during a funeral procession in the Turkish occupied area in north-east coastal city of Famagusta, Cyprus. AP

Rescuers carry survivor Rabia Ofkeli, 27, from the rubble in Hatay, southern Turkey. Reuters

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad visits Aleppo university hospital. Reuters

Members of the Swiss rescue team with a four-month-old girl, Abir, who was pulled out from the rubble in Antakya. AFP

Survivors at a hospital in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Reuters

Members of the White Helmets during the fifth day of rescue operations in Jandaris, Syria. Reuters

Indonesian Muslims perform a prayer for the victims at Istiqlal grand mosque in Jakarta. EPA

Emergency personnel conduct a rescue operation to save Melda, 16, from beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay, southern Turkey. AFP

The earthquake caused a railbed overpass to collapse in Nurdagi, Turkey. AFP

A framed picture on the cracked wall of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, south-eastern Turkey. EPA

A coastal area of Iskenderun, Turkey, was flooded after the quake. Reuters

A sheet of paper lies among the rubble in Elbistan. AP

Relief supplies destined for earthquake survivors in Turkey, at a warehouse in Schoenefeld, near Berlin, Germany. AP

Rescuers search for survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras, three days after the earthquake struck. AFP

Rescuers with a child pulled out from under the rubble. Reuters

Rescuers rest on top of rubble as an aircraft drops water over a fire at the port in the quake-stricken town of Iskenderun. Reuters

A rescue worker in Kahramanmaras, three days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck south-east Turkey. AFP

People try to pull out a dog trapped beneath the rubble in Iskenderun, Turkey. Reuters

Lorries carrying humanitarian aid wait at Bab Al Hawa crossing on the Turkey-Syria border. Reuters

Syrians warm up by a fire outside a makeshift tent near the rebel-held town of Jindayris in Syria. AFP

A dam on the Orontes river in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province collapsed after the quake, flooding the neighbourhood. AFP

The sails of the Sydney Opera House lit with a black ribbon in remembrance and mourning of the earthquake victims. Getty

Smoke billows amid an expanse of collapsed and damaged buildings in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Reuters

Dogs of the German International Search and Rescue team rest between operations in Kirikhan, Turkey. Reuters

White Helmets volunteers rescue a child trapped beneath the rubble in Jandaris, Syria. Reuters

People gather to collect food and humanitarian aid in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras, south-east Turkey. EPA

The statue of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, is surrounded by damaged buildings in Adiyaman province. AP

A plane carrying humanitarian air sent for earthquake survivors lands in Damascus. Mahmoud Rida / The National

Motorway fractured by earthquake causes car crash near Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Matt Kynaston / The National

A tent camp has been set up at a stadium in south-eastern Turkish city of Kahramanmaras to shelter families whose homes were destroyed in the quake. AFP

A displaced Syrian woman rests under a tree in a field on the outskirts of the rebel-held town of Jindayris. AFP