Earthquakes are Turkey's biggest and most painful reality. In just 100 years of the Republic, according to official figures, 33,000 people were killed in Erzincan, 17,000 in Izmit and 53,500 in 11 provinces of Turkey two years ago. These days, we are anxiously awaiting the earthquake that is likely to occur on Santorini Island in the Aegean. And of course, we know that a possible Istanbul earthquake, which experts say is "imminent", is in the pipeline. The Istanbul earthquake, which experts say could pose a survival problem for Turkey and kill hundreds of thousands of people. An earthquake is not only a natural phenomenon where buildings collapse. The psychological and social destruction it causes is also very difficult to repair. I was in Adıyaman on the second anniversary of the last major earthquake. I saw the desperation of those still forced to live in 22 square meter container cities after the earthquake. Especially women and children. A construction boom continues in the city. New problems are accumulating in the "shiny construction sites" that Murat Kurum, the Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, touts with pride.
AKP's new genius is the right to space!
No one is satisfied with the ongoing housing projects of the Housing Development Administration and Emlak Konut, which are being carried out through tenders awarded to favored contractors. Citizens do not know what will happen to their land, which has been declared a reserve area, and how much it will cost them. Because the purpose of these constructions is not to build a roof over the earthquake victims' heads, but to create rent again. Meanwhile, the AKP has created a new concept: "The right to space." One earthquake survivor explains this new "genius" as follows:
They cannot give up rent
"In the bazaar that is being demolished and rebuilt, we had a place with a five-story permit, but we could only build two floors. The ministry will give us two floors but will take the three floors above. They call this the right to space. It will sell it by tender. We have no priority in the tender. The cost of the other two floors will be known when they are finished. It is not clear how much we will pay. "
Why no steel structure?
Meanwhile, there is no confidence in the houses rebuilt in urban transformation. It is obvious that the biggest problem in earthquakes is the building stock. 6 months after the Kahramanmaras earthquake, 7.4 magnitude earthquakes occurred in Japan, and 3 months later, 7.6 magnitude earthquakes occurred in Taiwan. 120 people lost their lives in one of these earthquakes and 4 people lost their lives in the other. There was a conference by Japanese earthquake expert Yoshinori Morivvaki in Adıyaman. He attributes this low number of deaths to the appropriate building stock. The structures that did not collapse in those regions are these steel structures. Morivvaki says Turkey is not ready for an earthquake. We talked to Melih Şimşek, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Turkish Structural Steel Association, about why there is no interest in steel structures in concrete-crazed Turkey. Şimşek explains that no steel structure collapsed in the February 2023 earthquakes and says the following: "While the number of countries that prefer steel bearing systems is increasing day by day, 1 to 1.5 percent of the houses in our country consist of steel structures. On the other hand, approximately 50 percent of the buildings in America and England, 30 percent in Germany and France, and more than 50 percent in Iran are built with steel bearing systems." Şimşek says that the claim that steel structures are "expensive" is absolutely not true. Şimşek added that the structures built according to traditional methods are short-lived and said, "We have to build buildings that will not collapse. 300 thousand earthquake-resistant modular steel houses can be produced annually." We live in Istanbul and we don't trust any of the buildings we live in! The ruling AKP, on the other hand, is trying to blame the responsibility for the earthquake that has not yet happened on the local government, which it has already closed the credit taps and sees as its biggest rival. We hope we will not experience new and greater sufferings with this political anger!
