Earthquake in Turkey: Why the massive collapse of buildings was “chronicle of a foretold death” – Thousands dead at the altar of the construction “amnesty”

Public anger is being provoked in Turkey by the revelation of poor workmanship in thousands of buildings, which collapsed like a deck of cards.

It seems that contractors, favored by the regime, enjoyed a kind of amnesty for their violations, resulting in entire blocks of flats being built without foundations or with flimsy materials.

A high-rise building built by arrested contractor Mehmet Yasar Joskun’s company in Antioch was touted as a corner of heaven, but it turned into hell for some 800 people who were estimated to be trapped in its rubble.

Footage of citizens running in panic for their lives as a huge cloud of dust rises from the near-instant collapse of a newly built block of flats is “blood-curdling”.

The fury of the earthquake is clearly perceived by the images of the building tilting completely backwards. It hasn’t collapsed but it looks like it doesn’t even have a foundation.

There is not a single crack in the building, the windows are not broken.

“What we’re seeing here clearly suggests to us that something went wrong with these buildings, and that could be that they weren’t built to code in the first place, or that the design wasn’t implemented properly. They were definitely flawed» says Yasemin Didem Aktas, Structural Engineer at the University College of London.

The Enceladus strike highlighted a major problem in construction in Turkey.

Misdeeds that, according to the Turkish opposition, the famous gang of 5 who enjoy special privileges, allowed to happen.

Experts explain what went wrong.

As the President of OASP, Efthymios Lekkas, emphasizes, the anti-seismic regulations in Turkey are not as strict as ours and are not applied in most cases, about 40% of the cases.

Second, the buildings are of degraded quality.

The armor has no trenches to begin with.

The concrete is not in the condition it should be.

Thirdly, the configuration of the building frame is completely wrong, the masonry is not connected to the load-bearing body.
Fourth, what happens is that they show more care in the architectural appearance of the buildings, than in the anti-seismic armouring.

According to a BBC investigation, the government in Turkey often gives “amnesty” to construction companies while legal exemptions are made from the obligation to pay fines for buildings built without first adopting the required safety regulations and without the required certificates.

On the sidelines of the leveling of entire blocks of flats in Turkish cities since the devastating passage of the Engelada that claimed the lives of at least 25,000 citizens in Turkey and Syria, a question to be investigated is whether the poor workmanship was the responsibility of the engineers or attributed to the poor planning of the architects.

“We distinguish two things, or three I could say. The owner, the engineer and the architect. In this particular case, the civil engineer and the owner are mainly responsible. Because it is the owner who chooses the builder or contractor. Parenthetically, Erdogan chose the contractors. Therefore, the engineer must make a proper design so that the building is born, starts to become earthquake resistant“, says Panagiotis Karydis, Professor of Antiseismic Constructions at NTUA.

As a 2018 report by the Ministry of Environment and Infrastructure reveals, 50% of buildings in Turkey – a rate corresponding to approximately 13,000,000 buildings – were constructed in violation of regulations.

As for the checks on the implementation of the existing legislation, these were more than deficient.

Moreover, Bloomberg’s article is typical, pointing out that the safety of buildings was often sacrificed on the altar of profit.

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