Istanbul unprepared for next big deadly earthquake: experts
Chase Winter
August 18, 2019
The question is not if — but when — a devastating earthquake will hit Istanbul. Experts say the city of 15 million people is unprepared for the next big tremor.
Image: picture-alliance/imagebroker/W. Korall
Advertisement
In the early hours of August 17, 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake rattled the Marmara region east of Istanbul for 45 seconds.
More than 18,000 people were killed, according to official numbers, with another 50,000 injured and nearly 300,000 left homeless.
The Izmit earthquake — and another deadly quake three months later in the city of Duzce that killed nearly 900 people — highlighted the loose construction standards across Turkey and the ill-preparedness of emergency services.
While regulations have since become stricter and the disaster and emergency body AFAD was established, 20 years after the Marmara earthquake critics say preparation for a large earthquake is wholly inadequate.
'A matter of when'
Marco Bohnhoff, a seismologist at the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam, said the chance of a powerful earthquake striking under the Sea of Marmara off the coast of Istanbul is very high.
"There will be an earthquake and every day the risk of a giant tremor shaking Istanbul increases," he told DW. "The question is not whether there will be an earthquake; it's just a matter of when."
There are around 1.6 million buildings in Istanbul, around half of which were constructed illegally and without proper engineering services, according to the Chamber of City Planners.
According to AFAD estimates, an earthquake in Istanbul could kill nearly 30,000 people, injure 50,000 others, destroy 44,800 buildings and leave 2.6 million people homeless.
However, the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects calculates that 140,000 to 600,000 people could be killed and more than 1 million families left homeless.
Turkey: Back to Erdogan's Istanbul roots
Istanbul has always been one of the most important places for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kasimpasa, his old neighborhood and his birthplace, continues to stand behind him.
Erdogan's hometown
Just a short walk from Galata Tower and Istanbul's central Istiklal Avenue on the European side of the city, sits Kasimpasa. It's the neighborhood where the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was born and raised 65 years ago. It's also the place where his most loyal supporters live.
Image: Demetrios Ioannou
A new era
Last summer, Turkey held one of the most consequential elections in the country's modern history. On June 24, 2018, Erdogan started a new five-year term and became the first Turkish president to gain unprecedented new powers. "Turkey is entering a new era," he told members of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) on the day he was sworn in as president again.
Image: Demetrios Ioannou
Maximum power
In the wake of a 2017 referendum, Erdogan managed to change the constitution from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential republic. That allowed Erdogan to now serve both as head or state and head of government. It was the biggest change to the country's political system since the Turkish Republic was established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. Here, a dress has been made out of AKP flags.
Image: Demetrios Ioannou
One of the family
Posters bearing Erdogan's face and AKP flags bedecked Kasimpasa for days ahead of the election. Pasted on walls or hanging from balconies, it was clear who the neighborhood supported. Opposition candidates' posters were usually found torn or vandalized. For the people of Kasimpasa, Erdogan is part of the family.
Image: Demetrios Ioannou
A simple background
Erdogan comes from a conservative, working class family, a background that many of his supporters can relate to. He started his political career from Kasimpasa, where he lived most of his life. He first became mayor of Istanbul in 1994, prime minister in 2003 and president of Turkey in 2014.
Image: Demetrios Ioannou
Great expectations
The residents of Kasimpasa watched the news impatiently on election day in 2018. Most of the neighborhood's cafes were packed with men who had gathered hours earlier, waiting for the official results to come out. They were embroiled in passionate political discussions as they drank Turkish coffee or hot tea on that warm summer day.
Image: Demetrios Ioannou
Local hero
Erdogan is a local hero in Kasimpasa, someone like them who made it to the top. Though he's not exactly one of them anymore, as some of his opponents say. But for the locals nothing has changed. Why do they vote for him? "Because we love him," proclaimed one neighborhood resident who had cast a ballot for the president.
Image: Demetrios Ioannou
'Man from Kasimpasa' above all
Erdogan is known in the area as "Kasimpasali," or "the man from Kasimpasa." When initial results were announced on TV, people of all ages took to the streets of Kasimpasa to celebrate his victory, even though all ballots had not yet been counted. "They are traitors," a group of women said of those who voted for the opposition.
Celebration
The victory parade traversed streets throughout Kasimpasa before coming to an end at the central square by the port. There people sang, danced, set off fireworks and shot rifles into the air. A giant LED screen showed the results as people hugged each other and waved AKP flags. It was Erdogan's biggest win to date, and his former neighbors celebrated for him.
Back to the voting booth
One year later, the people of Kasimpasa and the rest of Istanbul have been called to the polls once again. The March 31 mayoral election resulted in a slim win for opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu over the AKP's Binali Yildirim. Under pressure from the AKP over allegations of ballot "irregularities," the election body nullified the results and scheduled a rerun of the election for June 23.
10 images1 | 10
Urban renewal and construction boom
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has overseen a credit-fueled infrastructure and construction boom in Istanbul, which has driven economic growth during his 16-years in power. Many of the construction firms are tied to businesses close to the government.
In 2012, following two earthquakes near the southeastern city of Van that killed more than 600 people, the government passed an "urban renewal" law that gave it vast powers to expropriate, confiscate and oversee the knocking down and reconstruction of buildings deemed at risk due to a natural disaster.
In Istanbul, many of the urban renewal projects targeted valuable land where high-rises, luxury housing and shopping centers sprouted up, while poorer- and higher-risk areas were neglected.
In 2014, an urban renewal project in Istanbul's Fikirtepe district came to a standstill after a man refused to approve demolition unless the company behind the construction gave him a clear contractImage: Getty Images/AFP/B. Kilic
Profit before safety?
Many residents were displaced after being given payments and loans to move into new homes on the outskirts of the city, which were built with the support of the state-backed housing agency TOKI. Meanwhile, the value of the property in their previous residence skyrocketed.
In a statement this week to mark the 20th anniversary of the Izmit earthquake, the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects said the government had abandoned earthquake preparedness in the name of profit.
"The 'urban renewal' project has veered from the necessity of redesigning cities and creating new buildings that are resistant to earthquakes to becoming a means for the government to increase its wealth with business allies," it said.
As part of a pre-election strategy, the government issued an amnesty last year for unregulated construction work that brought in $3 billion (€3.1 billion) in extra tax revenue. Hundreds of thousands of illegal buildings were registered.
Among the buildings registered was an apartment in Istanbul's Asian district of Kartal that collapsed in February, killing 21 people. Three floors of the eight-story building had been built illegally.
Following the collapse of the building in Kartal, authorities demolished several at-risk apartments in the districtImage: picture-alliance/AA/A. Bolat
Little space for post-earthquake response
The construction craze has also led to areas assigned as post-earthquake assembly zones for tents and a humanitarian response to be replaced with buildings. The Chamber of City Planners says there are only 77 such assembly areas despite the city identifying 470.
AFAD puts the number at around 2,300. However, the Chamber of City Planners warns that the emergency body is including small parks that won't be able to hold large numbers of people and carry out an emergency response.
