Two days after a severe earthquake, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan visited one of the worst-affected areas and pronounced it impossible to be prepared for such a tragedy.
Undoubtedly, the magnitude of the destruction was unexpected. The death toll from the earthquakes that devastated Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, 2023 continues to rise. One week later, however, it was reported that more than 35,000 people were murdered, more than 50,000 were injured, and more than one million received aid to survive the extreme cold. The hamlet of Pazarck in Kahramanmaraş, southern Turkey, was the epicenter of the 7.7 magnitude quake that struck while many residents were sleeping. It was followed nine hours later by a strong aftershock at Elbistan, a town about 50 miles from the first earthquake, which caused the total collapse of buildings weakened by the previous earthquake.
The final casualty figures are likely to place these two consecutive earthquakes among the world’s most devastating natural disasters.
As experts in disaster mitigation, the sobering question for us is if this huge loss of lives, homes, and livelihoods might have been prevented. There is no way to prevent earthquakes from occurring, but it is possible to reduce the magnitude of the destruction inflicted by these inevitable tremors.
Any assertion that a country cannot be “prepared” for an earthquake of the scale that struck Turkey and northern Syria is, in our opinion, a political statement; that is, it reflects political decisions rather than scientific evidence. In Turkey, the lack of preparedness stands in stark contrast to the country’s known exposure to seismic danger.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
According to the revised and published in 2018 Turkey Earthquake Hazard Map, practically the entirety of Turkey is exposed to seismic risk, as two important fault lines — the East Anatolian Fault zone and the North Anatolian Fault zone — traverse the country.
The 870-mile-long (1,400-kilometer-long) North Anatolian Fault traverses the northern half of the country from east to west, threatening the major cities of Ankara, the country’s capital, and Istanbul, as well as the most industrialized region. The 620-mile-long (almost 1,000-kilometer-long) East Anatolian Fault traverses the southeast of the country diagonally. It encompasses a swath of smaller towns and villages, yet millions of people in the region are at risk.
Turkey has often attempted to mitigate this underlying seismic danger. The Turkish parliament enacted Law 7269 on Disasters in 1959, establishing a framework to implement disaster preparedness rules at the national, provincial, and local levels. Existing preparedness measures were insufficient to safeguard the expanding population from death and destruction after five big earthquakes in the 1990s.
After the devastating earthquakes that struck the Marmara region of northwestern Turkey in 1999, which claimed the lives of more than 17,000 people, the Turkish government instituted a major recovery and reconstruction program designed to strengthen building codes and enhance inter-jurisdictional coordination. However, chronic corruption and lax enforcement of building rules impeded this ambitious initiative.
TAX
The Turkish government also imposed a “earthquake tax” in the aftermath of the 1999 disaster, ostensibly to gather finances to better prepare the country for future earthquakes. Since its implementation, an estimated $4.6 billion have been collected through the tax. However, there are severe concerns regarding the expenditure of the funds.
Then, in 2009, Turkey established a National Catastrophe and Emergency Management Authority to enhance disaster risk reduction and management capabilities.
The goal of AFAD was to provide disaster preparedness training for provincial and local officials and to conduct training exercises for at-risk populations. The strategy was to decentralize and invert the top-down approach to government, allowing local communities to build their own capacity to manage disaster risk.
In 2014, Turkey enacted a National Disaster Response Plan as a further effort to increase its readiness. In parts like nutrition group, emergency housing group, and communication group, it outlined the roles of government institutions in the event of a disaster.
The Turkish government launched a review of the national plan following the Soma mine catastrophe of 2014, in which 301 miners perished in an underground fire. It created an international advisory committee comprised of members from Japan, the United States, and Europe to study the existing law and offer amendments.
The ensuing recommendations included regular risk monitoring, increased emergency personnel training, and updated interagency communication systems. The plan was presented to the political leadership of Turkey, who authorized the changes in principle with the intention of implementing them in January 2015.
The completely redesigned National Disaster Management Plan was never implemented, however. Beginning in 2015, the federal government altered the National Disaster and Emergency Management Authority’s leadership. The procedure resulted in the replacement of experienced workers who had lobbied for greater training, advanced communications technology, and updated equipment for local governments. As a result of the denial of funds for training, new equipment, and extra employees, this change diminished the ability of local governments to take rapid action in the event of a hazard, as observed by us. While the plan was in existence, little actions were taken.
LESSONS FROM THE JAPAN AND CALIFORNIA QUAKES
The failure to implement the new catastrophe plan demonstrates a knowledge-action gap in addressing Turkey’s seismic risk. It is impossible to stop earthquakes, but it is possible to develop structures that do not collapse and kill large numbers of occupants, as Japan and California have done.
Turkey has designed and accepted building rules that are equal to the stringent codes adopted in California, which is prone to earthquakes. In addition, there are roughly 150,000 civil engineers in Turkey with the knowledge and abilities to create buildings, roads, and dams that can withstand the effects of earthquakes without failing.
However, the work moves at a snail’s pace due to the expense of repairing existing substandard buildings. While the 2000 building design standard is implemented well in big cities, the rest of the country’s engineers have a limited understanding of its criteria.
Since 2010, a building construction supervision system has been in place, but its scope is still insufficient to supervise the nation’s 16 million buildings.
THE FUTURE DIRECTION OF TURKEY
Turkey is once again at a crossroads, and this latest calamity demands immediate national action. Rebuilding the same type of defective homes and infrastructure will simply raise the likelihood of further catastrophes.
However, there is another option. The current generation of Turkish engineers, economists, policy analysts, and leaders can choose to take bold action: redesigning their built environment to live with seismic risk and involving the entire Turkish population in an ongoing experiment to create a society that recognizes earthquakes as a persistent threat that can be managed.
»Turkey’s earthquake reveals seismic knowledge and response gaps«
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