Turkey delays building contractors as earthquake death toll tops 33,000

Desperation has also fueled fury over the agonizingly slow rescue efforts as attention focused on who is to blame for people not being better prepared in the earthquake-prone region.

ANTAKYA, Hatay — Turkish authorities have targeted contractors believed to be linked to buildings that collapsed in powerful earthquakes on Feb. 6, as rescuers found more survivors in the rubble Sunday, including a pregnant woman and two children, in a natural disaster in which resulted in the death of more than 33,000 people.

The death toll from earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 that struck nine hours apart in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria has risen to 33,185 and will no doubt increase as search teams find more bodies.

When desperation gave rise to fury over painfully slow rescue efforts, the focus was on blame.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 131 people were under investigation for building buildings that could not withstand earthquakes. Despite the fact that the earthquakes were strong, many in Turkey blame improper construction for the increase in destruction.

Turkey’s building codes meet modern seismic standards, at least on paper, but they are rarely enforced, which explains why thousands of buildings have collapsed or collapsed on people inside.

Among those vetted were two people arrested in Gaziantep province on suspicion of cutting down columns to make way for more space in a collapsed building, state Anadolu news agency reported. The Justice Ministry said three people are under arrest awaiting trial, seven have been detained and another seven have been banned from leaving Turkey.

Two contractors responsible for the destruction of several buildings in Adiyaman were arrested Sunday at Istanbul airport while trying to leave the country, private news agency DHA and other media reported.

One detained contractor, Yavuz Karakus, told DHA: “My conscience is clear. I built 44 buildings. Four of them have been demolished. I did everything right.”

Rescuers reported that, against the backdrop of ever-lower odds, more survivors were found. Thermal imaging cameras were used on piles of concrete and metal as the crews demanded silence so they could hear those trapped.

In the hard-hit province of Hatay, brigades carried a seriously wounded 50-year-old woman to the city of Iskenderun. Similar rescue operations in the province rescued two more women, one of whom was pregnant, TV channels TRT and HaberTurk reported.

HaberTurk showed a 6-year-old boy rescued from his destroyed home in Adiyaman. The exhausted rescuer took off his surgical mask and took a deep breath as a group of women wept with joy.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca posted a video showing a young girl in a navy blue jumper found alive. “There is always hope!” he tweeted.

Rescuers in Antakya, another district in Hatay province, pulled a man in his 20s and 30s out of the rubble, saying he was one of nine still locked in the building. But when asked if he knew anyone else, he said he hadn’t heard from anyone in three days. He waved weakly as he was carried away on a stretcher as workers cheered and chanted, “God is great!”

German and Turkish workers rescued an 88-year-old man in Kirihan, according to the German news agency dpa. Italian and Turkish rescuers found a 35-year-old man in Antakya who turned out to be unharmed, private NTV television reported.

A child was released in the city of Nizip in Gaziantep at night, and a 32-year-old woman was found in the ruins of an eight-story building in Antakya and asked for tea when she got out, according to the state-run Anadolu agency. NTV.

These were rare exceptions.

Excavators and bulldozers prepared a large cemetery on the outskirts of Antakya as trucks and ambulances kept arriving with black body bags. Hundreds of graves no more than 3 feet (meters) apart were marked with simple wooden boards.

Hatay Airport reopened on Sunday after its runway was repaired and military and commercial aircraft brought supplies to the region and picked up evacuees.

34,717 Turkish search and rescue services are involved in rescue work. On Sunday, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said 9,595 employees from 74 countries had joined, and more are on the way.

In the Syrian capital of Damascus, the head of the World Health Organization warned that the pain would intensify, calling the disaster “an unfolding tragedy affecting millions.”

“The worsening crises of conflict, COVID, cholera, the economic downturn, and now the earthquake, have taken an unbearable toll,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Tedros said WHO experts were waiting to enter northwest Syria, “where we’ve been told the consequences are even worse.”

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, who visited the Turkish-Syrian border on Sunday, said the Syrians are “looking for international aid that has not yet arrived.”

“Until now, we have let people down in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” he said, adding: “It is my duty and our duty to correct this mistake as quickly as possible.”

In the city of Atarebe, in the opposition-controlled northern province of Aleppo, Abdel-Hasib Abdel-Rahim returned on Sunday to his destroyed four-story building to try to salvage all valuables, but could only find blankets, pillows and some clothes. His aunt and her husband died there, but their three children survived.

Due to the lack of international rescue operations in the war-torn region, the 34-year-old man had to collect the bodies himself.

“You can’t hear someone screaming inside, and sit still. You cannot sit still. You don’t have the guts to hear someone (cry for help) and you don’t do anything,” he said, sitting over a pile of rubble.

Political divisions have delayed humanitarian aid convoys sent from areas of northeast Syria controlled by US-backed Kurdish groups to areas controlled by the Syrian government and Turkish-backed rebels who have fought alongside Kurdish groups for years.

A UN aid convoy heading to northwestern Syria through government-controlled areas has been delayed due to obstruction by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the al-Qaeda-linked group that controls Idlib province, a UN official told Associated Press.

Meanwhile, UN humanitarian aid convoys continue to cross Turkish territory to northwestern Syria through the Bab el-Hawa border crossing. The first UN convoy arrived in northwest Syria from Turkey only on Thursday, three days after the crash.

Prior to that, a continuous stream of bodies had flowed through Bab al-Hawa: Syrian refugees who fled the civil war and settled in Turkey, but died during a natural disaster, who were returned home for burial.

The death toll from the earthquake in the rebel-held region of northwestern Syria has risen to 2,166, according to the White Helmets rescue team. The total death toll in Syria on Saturday stood at 3,553, although the 1,387 death toll in government-controlled parts of the country has not been updated for several days. As of Sunday, the death toll in Turkey stood at 29,605.

The Turkish Ministry of Justice has announced the establishment of an earthquake-related crime investigation bureau to identify contractors and others responsible for construction work. This will collect evidence; train experts, including architects, geologists and engineers; and check building permits and occupation permits.

On Friday, a contractor was detained at Istanbul airport before he could leave the country. He built a luxurious 12-story building called Ronesans Rezidans in Antakya, and when it collapsed, countless people died. He was officially arrested on Saturday.

In a leaked statement released by Anadolu, the man said the building complied with regulations and he doesn’t know why it failed. His lawyer suggested that his client was the scapegoat.

Due to government programs that allowed building owners to pay fines instead of bringing buildings into compliance, the government agency responsible for enforcement admitted in 2019 that more than half of all buildings in Turkey, which account for about 13 million apartments do not meet the requirements.

Detentions can help direct public anger at builders and contractors by redirecting it to local and state officials who allowed the construction of clearly substandard facilities. The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, already burdened by an economic downturn and high inflation, faces parliamentary and presidential elections in May.

Rescue crews have been overwhelmed by the massive damage to roads and airports, making it even more difficult to move quickly.

Erdogan acknowledged that the initial action was hindered by the damage done. He said the worst affected area is 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter and is home to 13.5 million people. During Saturday’s tour, Erdogan said such a tragedy was rare, calling it “the disaster of the century” in several speeches.

Fraser reported from Ankara. Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul, Abby Sewell in Beirut and Kirsten Grishaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

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