The city of Erzin lies less than 80km from the earthquake’s epicentre, but it still stands. Read more at straitstimes.com.
ISTANBUL - For kilometres around the small Turkish city of Erzin, the earth is shattered and buildings are razed, towns and cities turned into tombs of concrete by the Feb 6 earthquake of magnitude 7.8.The question of why the city weathered the quake and a powerful aftershock, when so many others did not, is consuming the population.The mayor almost immediately seized the moment to boast that he had long prevented slipshod construction, now the focus of authorities around Turkey.
But Antakya was devastated, much of it reduced to rubble, and Iskenderun was badly hit, with a major fire at the port, seawater flooding the streets, and apartments and shops destroyed. In contrast, Erzin stands higher above sea level, and is built on hard ground comprising “bedrock and coarser grains than sand”, said Tamer Duman, a geographer.
Builders have been accused of using cheap materials and skirting building codes to expedite projects and fatten profits – erecting structures that could not survive quakes. He said that many developers were inexperienced and uneducated about regulations, like the seismic code for strong foundations. “We told the government to impose engineering inspections before granting amnesty,” said Orhan Sarialtun, a board member of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, a group often at odds with Mr Erdogan’s party.
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