When two earthquakes struck on Feb. 6, more than 50,000 people were killed in Turkey and Syria. The catastrophe is estimated to have created up to 210 million tons of rubble — and now, the question of how to dispose of it all safely is a critical dilemma.
The question of how to dispose of it all safely is a complex task, one of many critical dilemmas facing Turkey in the aftermath of the earthquakes — a national trauma that left grieving cities across the country’s south, and more than a million people homeless.
As he spoke, a large dust cloud swept off the pile toward his restaurant, as trucks poured debris over the mound’s edge, not far from a small patch of wetlands. Mehmet Emin Birpinar, Turkey’s deputy minister of environment, urbanization and climate change, has defended the government’s demolition policieson Twitter, saying dump sites in Hatay are being chosen with input from local officials and precautions are being taken to mitigate harm from the wreckage, including testing the air.
Few residents have disputed the necessity of clearing the debris, as damaged buildings teeter over tents where people shelter, often in the yards of their former homes. But the disposal could occur “in places that are not residential,” said Deniz Aslan, 30, a resident of Samandag who attended a small protest earlier this month, and mentioned other remote sites, like the sides of mountains, as more appropriate dumping grounds. In fact, several rubble heaps have already appeared in such areas.
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