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Turkey Earthquake

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19 views11 pages

Turkey Earthquake

project

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www.safianaz2002
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Turkey earthquake: Why did so many

buildings collapse?

The sight of newly constructed apartments collapsing in the earthquakes that hit Turkey has sparked
anger. The BBC examined three new buildings, turned to rubble, to find out what they reveal about
building safety.
Two major earthquakes - measuring 7.8 and 7.5 on the magnitude scale -
flattened buildings of all kinds and killed thousands of people across southern
Turkey and northern Syria.
But the fact that even some of the newest apartment blocks crumbled to dust
has led to urgent questions about building safety standards.
Modern construction techniques should mean buildings can withstand quakes
of this magnitude. And regulations following previous disasters in the country
were supposed to ensure these protections were built in.
In the first of three new building collapses identified by the BBC, social media
footage shows people screaming and running for cover.
The lower half of an apartment block in Malatya is seen crumbling, leaving the
remainder standing at an angle over dust and rubble.

The apartments were newly constructed last year, and screenshots have been shared
on social media showing an advert saying the building was "completed in compliance
with the latest earthquake regulations".
All materials and workmanship used were "first-class quality", the advert
claimed. While the original advert is no longer available online, screenshots
and videos of it circulating on social media match similar adverts by the same
company.
The recent construction means it should have been built to the latest
standards, updated in 2018, which require structures in earthquake-prone
regions to use high-quality concrete reinforced with steel bars. Columns and
beams must be distributed to effectively absorb the impact of earthquakes.
But the BBC has not been able to verify the construction standards used in this
block.
Photographs show that another recently built apartment block in the port city
of Iskenderun was largely destroyed. The side and rear of the 16-storey
building collapsed entirely, leaving just a sliver of the block standing.

The BBC matched the image of the collapsed building to a publicity photo
published by the construction company, which shows that it was completed in
2019.
That means it should also have been built to the latest standards. The BBC has
contacted the construction company responsible, but has received no
response.
Another image in Antakya, verified by the BBC, shows that much of a nine-
storey apartment complex was reduced to rubble, behind a sign displaying the
development's name: Guclu Bahce.
We found video of the housing complex's opening ceremony, which confirms it
was completed in November 2019.
In the video, Servet Atlas, the owner of Ser-Al Construction, says: "The Guclu
Bahce City project is particularly special compared to the others in terms of its
location and construction qualities."

Responding to the BBC, Mr Altas said: "Among the hundreds of buildings I have
built in Hatay [the southern province which has Antakya as its capital].
Unfortunately and sadly two blocks... have collapsed."
He adds that the earthquake was of such a vast scale that almost no buildings
in the city survived intact. "We painfully witness how some media
organisations are changing perception and picking scapegoats under the guise
of reporting," he said.
With so many buildings having collapsed across the stricken region, many in
Turkey have been asking questions about the nature of the building
regulations.
Although the quakes were powerful, experts say properly constructed buildings
should have been able to stay standing.
"The maximum intensity for this earthquake was violent but not necessarily
enough to bring well constructed buildings down," says Prof David Alexander,
an expert in emergency planning and management at University College
London.
"In most places the level of shaking was less than the maximum, so we can
conclude out of the thousands of buildings that collapsed, almost all of them
don't stand up to any reasonably expected earthquake construction code."

Failure to enforce building regulations;


Construction regulations have been tightened following previous disasters,
including a 1999 earthquake around the city of Izmit, in the north-west of the
country, in which 17,000 people died.
But the laws, including the latest standards set in 2018, have been poorly
enforced.
"In part, the problem is that there's very little retrofitting of existing buildings,
but there's also very little enforcement of building standards on new builds,"
says Prof Alexander.
The BBC's Middle East Correspondent, Tom Bateman, spoke to people in the
southern city of Adana who said one collapsed building there was damaged 25
years ago in another quake but was left without any proper retrofitting.
Countries such as Japan, where millions of people live in densely populated
high-rise buildings despite the country's history of severe earthquakes, show
how building regulations can help to keep people safe in disasters.
Construction safety requirements vary depending on a building's use and its
proximity to areas most at risk of earthquakes: from simple strengthening, to
motion dampers throughout the building, to placing the entire structure on top
of a giant shock absorber to isolate it from the movement of the ground.
Why is enforcement so weak?
In Turkey, however, the government has provided periodic "construction
amnesties" - effectively legal exemptions for the payment of a fee, for
structures built without the required safety certificates. These have been
passed since the 1960s (with the latest in 2018).
Critics have long warned that such amnesties risk catastrophe in the event of
a major earthquake.
Up to 75,000 buildings across the affected earthquake zone in southern Turkey
have been given construction amnesties, according to Pelin Pınar Giritlioğlu,
Istanbul head of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects'
Chamber of City Planners.
Just a few days before the latest disaster, Turkish media reported that a new
draft law is awaiting parliamentary approval which would grant a further amnesty
for recent construction work.
Geologist Celal Sengor said earlier this year that passing such construction
amnesties in a country riven by fault lines amounts to a "crime".
After a deadly earthquake hit the western province of Izmir in 2020, a BBC
Turkish report found that 672,000 buildings in Izmir had benefited from the
most recent amnesty.

Turkey earthquake: Where did it hit and


why was it so deadly?

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and scores more injured by a huge earthquake which
struck south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, in the early hours of Monday morning.
The earthquake, which hit near the town of Gaziantep, was closely followed by
numerous aftershocks - including one quake which was almost as large as the
first.

Why was it so deadly?


The first earthquake was big - it registered as 7.8, classified as "major" on the
official magnitude scale. It broke along about 100km (62 miles) of fault line,
causing serious damage to buildings near the fault
Prof Joanna Faure Walker, head of the Institute for Risk and Disaster
Reduction at University College London, said: "Of the deadliest earthquakes in
any given year, only two in the last 10 years have been of equivalent
magnitude, and four in the previous 10 years."
But it is not only the power of the tremor that causes devastation.
This incident occurred in the early hours of the morning, when people were
inside and sleeping.
The sturdiness of the buildings is also a factor.
Dr Carmen Solana, reader in volcanology and risk communication at the
University of Portsmouth, says: "The resistant infrastructure is unfortunately
patchy in South Turkey and especially Syria, so saving lives now mostly relies
on response. The next 24 hours are crucial to find survivors. After 48 hours the
number of survivors decreases enormously."
This was a region where there had not been a major earthquake for more than
200 years or any warning signs, so the level of preparedness would be less
than for a region which was more used to dealing with tremors.
What caused the earthquake?
The Earth's crust is made up of separate bits, called plates, that nestle
alongside each other.
These plates often try to move but are prevented by the friction of rubbing up
against an adjoining one. But sometimes the pressure builds until one plate
suddenly jerks across, causing the surface to move.
In this case it was the Arabian plate moving northwards and grinding against
the Anatolian plate.

Friction from the plates has been responsible for very damaging earthquakes in
the past.
On 13 August 1822 it caused an earthquake registering 7.4 in magnitude,
significantly less than the 7.8 magnitude recorded on Monday.
Even so, the 19th Century earthquake resulted in immense damage to towns in
the area, with 7,000 deaths recorded in the city of Aleppo alone. Damaging
aftershocks continued for nearly a year.
There have already been several aftershocks following the current earthquake
and scientists are expecting it to follow the same trend as the previous big one
in the region.

How are earthquakes measured?


They are measured on a scale called the Moment Magnitude Scale (Mw). This
has replaced the better known Richter scale, now considered outdated and
less accurate.
The number attributed to an earthquake represents a combination of the
distance the fault line has moved and the force that moved it .
A tremor of 2.5 or less usually cannot be felt, but can be detected by
instruments. Quakes of up to five are felt and cause minor damage. The
Turkish earthquake at 7.8 is classified as major and usually causes serious
damage, as it has in this instance.
Anything above 8 causes catastrophic damage and can totally destroy
communities at its centre.

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