That’s why the magnitude of the destruction is so great “Let’s die together anyway” – this is how those affected experienced the earthquake

The day after the massive earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the magnitude of the catastrophe became clear: more than 5,000 people lost their lives and tens of thousands were injured. With Antakya, Kahramanmaraş and Gaziantep, entire cities have been destroyed. The natural disaster hits the country and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the middle of the election campaign.

How is the rescue work progressing?

In many places, work is slowly getting started. Many roads and access roads have been destroyed and many houses are in danger of collapsing. That is why emergency services do not always arrive immediately.

In addition to Turkish and Syrian helpers, there are also many helpers from abroad. 27 search and rescue teams have been mobilized through the EU’s Disaster Response Centre, Janez Lenarčič, the responsible EU commissioner, reported on Tuesday. A total of 1,150 rescuers and 70 dogs are on their way.

Aid workers from Great Britain, Israel, India, Pakistan, Finland, Sweden, the US, Russia and Ukraine are also on their way to the disaster area. Volunteers from the Federal Agency for Technical Assistance (THW) travel from Germany to Turkey.

They will all help the Turkish rescuers on site. However, the day after the catastrophe was also criticized. On social media, users are complaining that in many places there is still no one to be seen from the state side. “No soldiers, no police, no soup, no blankets, no government, nothing!” said Muharrem İnce, the founder of the Kemalist party Memleket Partisi, on a visit to the city of Kahramanmaraş on Monday evening. This makes it clear that the rescue work also has a political dimension – because the hard-hit areas are mainly inhabited by Kurds.

No help arrives in the city of Gaziantep either. In a neighborhood with 60,000 inhabitants, half of all houses collapsed, Mayor Fatma Şahin reported in a television interview on Tuesday: “I have never seen such a catastrophe”.

Why have so many houses completely collapsed?

There are several reasons for this. On the one hand, the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria were only about 18 kilometers deep and relatively strong, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale. This led to very great destruction, explains Joanna Faure Walker, head of the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, in an interview with ZDF.

Another reason for the almost unimaginable extent of destruction in many places is the location of some of the cities that were particularly hard hit. For example, the city of Antakya (390,000 inhabitants) is located in a basin. In the area around the city there is a lot of agriculture and therefore also an active irrigation of the soil.

The result: The soft soil reacts to strong vibrations like an amplifier for earthquake waves, writes the geophysicist Jens Skapski on “erdbebennews.de”. The earthquake waves would be reflected off the surrounding mountain slopes and thrown back at the city. Many buildings would therefore not stand a chance of surviving such an earthquake.

But even those who should be able to withstand it often can’t: many of the houses in the earthquake zone are not built as stable as the state requires. The reason: Many builders in Turkey repeatedly ignore the strict building regulations that have been in place since the 1999 İzmit earthquake that killed more than 18,000 people. Often enough, the government has to look the other way and give permission for homes that do not comply with the rules.

Could the many deaths have been prevented?

Possible. That is, if the Turkish state had listened to the warnings of the Turkish Chamber of Geology Engineers. In an interview with “Spiegel”, the boss, Hüseyin Alan, reported that in 2021 his authority would have warned other government agencies about the risk of earthquakes in the areas now affected. “Unfortunately, our work was apparently not noticed by anyone,” says the scientist.

The devastation came as no surprise to Alan. In fact, soil research should be carried out before building is allowed in earthquake zones. “That won’t happen,” Alan tells the “Mirror”. “We keep pointing out the shortcomings of the system, but to no avail.”

How will the earthquake affect Turkey’s elections?

The earthquake is primarily a humanitarian catastrophe, but also politically explosive for the country. Turkey is in the election campaign, the main opposition party CHP wanted to present its candidate in February, who is to challenge Erdoğan in the presidential elections on May 14. The earthquake has now changed everything.

In recent polls, things are not looking good for the Turkish president. The economic and currency crisis has firmly gripped Turkey, but now the natural disaster is shifting attention to other topics: how is the rescue work going? How does the reconstruction work?

Erdoğan is under pressure because the situation leaves room for error. To create justification in an emergency, the Turkish government repeatedly emphasizes the magnitude of the “catastrophe of the century”.

Will the disaster help Erdoğan in the election campaign?

That is completely unclear. In Germany, memories are awakened of Gerhard Schröder (SPD), who in 2002 staged the flood disaster in Saxony with rubber boots in the flood area and thus also won the federal elections.

But the earthquake is not necessarily a campaign tool for Erdoğan. It now depends on his crisis management. He will try to rally the Turks in the face of this catastrophe. His problem: empathy was not always one of Erdoğan’s greatest political forces, on the contrary. In October 2022, he spoke of “destiny” when an explosion at a coal mine in Amasra killed 41 people. The anger of the population then also set in.

Besides the humanitarian catastrophe, the earthquake also brings many other political problems for Erdoğan. He will have to wonder why he has not had the structure of many buildings improved during his nearly 20-year tenure – despite the high risk of earthquakes in Turkey (see above). The earthquake was a catastrophe with an announcement, many experts warned again and again about such a scenario.

In addition, the Turkish lira continued to fall due to the earthquake, further worsening the economic situation for many people in the country. If Erdoğan does not get this under control, the earthquake will not benefit him in the election campaign. Many Western partners are now sending aid workers to Turkey and supporting the country with donations after the earthquake. Erdoğan’s tried-and-tested strategy – seeking conflict abroad, diverting it from domestic political problems – is therefore difficult to implement.

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(t online)