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2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been accused of granting amnesty for buildings that didn’t meet earthquake construction codes. Photo: dpa

Turkish president bragged about builders skirting earthquake construction codes in areas now turned to rubble, videos reveal

  • President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seen boasting about removing building standards headaches for hundreds of thousands with his policy, local media reports
  • At least 70,000 buildings in areas where last week’s devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck and killed some 37,000 people, used the policy, experts say

Resurfaced videos from 2019 show Turkey’s president boasting about granting amnesty for buildings that didn’t meet earthquake construction codes, according to local media.

The videos of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are circulating widely in Turkey as the death toll from this month’s devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake surpassed 37,000 people.

Erdogan is seen in the videos speaking on the campaign trail in 2019, boasting of having removed building standards-related headaches for hundreds of thousands of citizens with his amnesty policy.

One stop was in Kahramanmaraş, the recent earthquake’s epicentre. There, in 2019, he said: “We have solved the problems of 144,556 Kahramanmaraş citizens with the amnesty,” according to local outlet Duvar English.

Erdogan made similar boasts in campaign stops in the province of Hatay and the city of Malatya, both also now ravaged by the earthquake, Duvar reported. In Hatay, he said: “We have solved the problems of 205,000 citizens of Hatay with zoning peace,” according to a translation by NPR.

Zoning peace is another name for the Turkish amnesty policy which, on payment of a fine, gives retroactive permits to structures built without planning permission, or not up to code. Those standards include fire protection and seismic standards, according to Duvar.

The most recent iteration of the policy came in 2018, under Erdogan’s presidency.

Why did buildings in quake-hit Turkey fold like pack of cards?

The office of the presidency of Turkey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before-and-after images of Hatay show the impact of the devastation, though it is unclear whether the buildings pictured are among those granted amnesty.

Erdogan has previously acknowledged the role of building standards in the scale of earthquake disasters, tweeting in 2013 that “buildings kill, not earthquakes”, according to NPR’s translation.

A satellite image shows an overview of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, Turkey, on December 22, 2022, before the earthquake. Photo: Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies via AFP
This satellite image shows the same area of Antakya on February 8, two days after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck. Photo: Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies via AFP

Estimates vary as to how many buildings in the earthquake zone had taken advantage of the amnesty policy.

The BBC quoted Pelin Pınar Giritlioglu, head of Istanbul’s branch of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, assaying that between 70,000-75,000 buildings in the earthquake zone had benefitted from the policy.

Meanwhile, Duvar cited Bugra Gokce, the deputy secretary general of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, as saying that 294,165 buildings in the affected areas had taken advantage of it.

It remains unclear if many of the buildings would have collapsed anyway.

Nonetheless, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu placed the blame squarely with the president, according to NPR, saying: “If there is one person responsible for this, it is Erdogan.”

How to help:

Turkish Consulate General Hong Kong

Unicef Hong Kong

Oxfam

Save the Children

World Vision Hong Kong

Red Cross

MSF (Doctors Without Borders)

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