The images of buildings reduced to ruins next to buildings without major apparent damage raised discussions among experts about the quality of construction in Turkey after the tremors that devastated cities in the southeast of the country and left at least 15,000 dead until this Wednesday (8). ).
Urban planning and the lack of coordination between laws and regulations on the subject, in addition to its politicization, are also the target of criticism. An example is the proposal of the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2018, which granted amnesty to those responsible for irregular constructions shortly before the elections of that year. He was the favourite, despite the backdrop of political turmoil and a devaluation of the Turkish lira.
The measure was part of a debt forgiveness package and targeted a huge number of irregular constructions in the country. For property owners with any irregularity, it was enough to register on a website, in which personal documents and information about the property were requested, and pay a fee that would be calculated according to the value of the construction and its area. From then on, the property would be considered regularized, fines would be forgiven and it would be able to access the energy, water and gas networks.
Erdogan’s kindness package generated short-term revenue boosts for the government and led to the regularization of properties that were deviating from the law in any way. In July 2018, about a month after the election, the number of applications for regularization surpassed 2.6 million, according to an article published in the Turkish Engineering Magazine in 2020.
In February 2019, 21 people died in the collapse of a residential building that had three of its eight floors built illegally – the property, however, had been regularized by Erdogan’s measure.
“[A anistia] means the transformation of our cities, notably Istanbul, into cemeteries, and will result in coffins coming out of our homes,” said Cemal Gokce, then president of the country’s Chamber of Civil Engineers at the time. floors than the original project, all could be granted amnesty. That is very dangerous.”
Informal buildings are nothing new in Turkey, nor have they been used politically since the mid-20th century, when the country began its leap in terms of urbanization. According to the World Bank, only 32% of the country’s population lived in urban areas in 1960, compared to 77% in 2021 —in Brazil, the data corresponding to these years are 46% and 87%, respectively.
In the 1980s, for example, the country legalized entire neighborhoods, with emphasis on the “gecekondu” (something like “built overnight”), informal constructions that grew especially in large cities and are part of the country’s urban scene. . The measure ended up stimulating new irregular undertakings.
Informal activity is an important aspect of Turkish civil construction, which in turn corresponded to 5.4% of the country’s GDP in 2020, the year in which the sector received investments of €78 billion (R$435 billion, in non-adjusted values) , according to the European Construction Industry Federation.
“The number one factor [para a escala da destruição do terremoto desta semana] it was the quality of the constructions”, Ross Stein, CEO of Temblor, a company specialized in modeling catastrophes such as this week’s earthquakes, told Scientific American magazine. “The construction quality is controlled by construction laws and their inspection. Turkey has modern legislation on the subject since the terrible 1999 earthquake in Izmit [que deixou mais de 17 mil mortos]. So why did the buildings fall? Were they old? Or were they not properly reinforced?” asked Stein.
Peli Pinar Giritlioglu, president of the Istanbul branch of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, made a similar analysis. “The extraordinary devastation is perpetuated by the persistence of repeating flawed urbanization policies and politically charged decisions such as the 2018 amnesty law.”
Erdogan has been criticized by the population affected by this week’s earthquake for the delay in the arrival of rescuers and lack of assistance amid the cold and hunger. In Gaziantepe, one of the affected cities, the population questions what happened to the money collected from the so-called “earthquake tax”, a package of new taxes implemented in the country after the 1999 earthquake. 6 billion (approximately R$ 24 billion), supposedly invested in the prevention of catastrophes like the current one and in the promotion of rescue services. The effects, however, are still unclear.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
