ANTAKYA/ISTANBUL: Turkey has arrested 184 people in connection with building collapses in this month’s earthquakes and is widening the scope of investigations, a minister said on Saturday, with many angry over corrupt building practices. Seen as
Overnight, the death toll from the earthquake, the strongest of which struck overnight on February 6, rose to 44,128 in Turkey. This brings the total death toll in Turkey and neighboring Syria to over 50,000.
More than 160,000 buildings containing 520,000 apartments collapsed or were severely damaged in Turkey, the worst in the country’s modern history.
Justice Minister Bakir Bozdag said more than 600 people had been investigated in connection with the collapsed buildings, speaking at a news conference in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, which was among 10 provinces affected by the disaster.
He said that those who have been formally arrested and remanded in custody include 79 construction contractors, 74 persons who bear legal responsibility for buildings, 13 property owners and 18 persons who own buildings. What was the change?
Many Turks have expressed outrage at what they see as corrupt building practices and poor urban development.
President Tayyip Erdogan, who faces the biggest political challenge of his two-decade rule in elections until June, has promised accountability.
State broadcaster TRT Haber and other media reported that in Gaziantep province, the mayor of Noordgi district – who is from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party – was among those arrested during an investigation into the collapsed buildings.
‘Breaking my heart’
Nearly three weeks after the disaster, Turkey has no final death toll and officials have not said how many bodies are still trapped under the rubble.
A firefighter helping clear the debris in the hard-hit city of Antakya said body parts were being found on a daily basis.
“It’s very difficult. You can’t tell a guy to keep working if he’s lifting someone’s arm,” said the firefighter, who declined to be identified.
Turkey’s Disaster Management Authority said nearly two million people displaced by the disaster were housed in tents, container homes and other facilities in the region and other parts of the country.
It added that more than 335,000 tents have been set up in the earthquake zone and container home settlements are being set up in 130 locations, while about 530,000 people have been evacuated from the affected areas.
But near Antakya, Imran al-Suwayd, a Syrian, and his family are still living in makeshift shelters.
“Our houses were badly damaged so we took shelter here in a garden in our neighborhood,” said al-Suwaid.
“The biggest problem is the tents. It’s been 19 days and we still haven’t got a single tent. We even applied for a tent camp but they said the ones nearby are full,” he said. have been.”
The only remaining Armenian village in Turkey, Vakyfli, was badly affected by the earthquake, with 30 of its 40 stone houses heavily damaged.
“We have Vykifli, the only Armenian village in Turkey. This is our home. It breaks my heart to see it like this,” said Masses, a 67-year-old retired jeweler who moved back to his hometown after 17 years. . Year in Istanbul
Turkey and Armenia still dispute the 1.5 million people Armenia says were killed in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey. Armenia says it is genocide.
Turkey acknowledges that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War I, but disputes these figures and denies that it was systematic.
