In earthquake-ravaged Antakya, Turkey, residents wonder why the city could not have been better prepared

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In the old town of Antakya, ancient churches, mosques, restaurants and hotels lie in crumbling piles of rubble largely untouched since February 6, when two catastrophic earthquakes struck just nine hours apart, killing more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria.

On the edge of an almost deserted street in this city in southeastern Turkey, Mehmet Serkan Sincan, 50, sits outside a ramshackle antique shop with some of his vintage wares. He says he is still open for business.

Senkan lights a cigarette and drinks coffee. It’s like a normal morning routine, except it’s surrounded by chalk-colored piles of debris, in a city devastated by disaster.

He says the authorities need to go back decades to identify those responsible.

“Those who have not done good things…have to pay something,” he said. People died, children died, everyone died.

Antakya, which had a pre-earthquake population of about 200 thousand people, is located in the Hatay province in southeastern Turkey. During the earthquakes, the region saw more than half of its 400,000 buildings collapse or be severely damaged.

Although President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to rebuild homes in the quake zone within a year, local officials say it will take months before any construction begins in Antakya because aftershocks are still ongoing, as well as entire blocks being demolished.

With tens of thousands of residents living in tents and trailers, there is still palpable anger among some about why the region could not have prepared better, given the risks were so well known. In the aftermath of the devastation in the southeast of the country, experts warn that a similar disaster may be repeated in the Istanbul region which is set to suffer a major earthquake of its own.

Emel Atici collects dry branches to heat water so that people staying in the camp can take a weekly shower. Atishi, 61 years old, lost her son, daughter-in-law and grandson in the earthquake in Antakya. (Coren Semenoff/CBC)

When the first 7.8-magnitude quake struck at 4:17 a.m., Senkan was awakened by a thunderous shake in the apartment building he shared with his parents.

He heard his mother’s cries and eventually managed to reunite with her and his father, before heading out into the street to try to rescue screaming people from the rubble.

Closing his eyes and shaking his head, he tells CBC News he often thinks of those frantic hours after the first quake.

With his apartment building too damaged to stay, he moved to the second floor of his antique shop until the third earthquake, a magnitude of 6.4, struck two weeks later.

He was standing in the street at the time, near the Turkish army personnel, when they all sat on the ground as low as possible.

“I [thought] “We were going down this time,” he told CBC News May 16 outside his store in Antakya. “It was very difficult.”

A luxury residential complex that was just opened in 2019 in Antakya was used on this site. The five towers developed by Guclu Bahce (Mighty Garden) are marketed as being built to the highest standards. Dozens of residents were killed. (Dmitry Kozlov/CBC)

A few seconds later, they begin to hear the “bang” of large buildings collapsing to the ground, including a four-story apartment-style hotel across the street.

Officials said six people were killed in the quake, which occurred just as the rescue mission was about to end.

Tightening building codes

Türkiye is one of the most earthquake-prone countries due to its proximity to the intersection of tectonic plates. Two fault lines pass through it, and the February earthquakes were caused by sliding on the 700-kilometer-long East Anatolian Fault.

Experts say the country is also at high risk of severe destruction since hundreds of thousands of its buildings lack structural integrity.

In 1998, the country tightened building codes to make buildings more earthquake-resistant. A year later, when a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in the western city of Izmit killed more than 17,000 people, more regulations were introduced to enforce design code and inspections for new buildings.

But even the new, supposedly state-of-the-art buildings collapsed in the February earthquake, prompting accusations of fraud and corruption.

Authorities have issued more than 230 arrest warrants for developers and contractors.

A New York Times investigation found that a developer secured zoning approval for a five-tower apartment complex in Antakya after donating more than $270,000 to a local soccer club.

Four of the five towers collapsed in the quake and authorities launched a criminal investigation.

When it opened in 2019, it was marketed as being built to the highest standard.

The Mayor of Hatay, Lütvu Savaş, helped to officially open the buildings by holding a golden pair of scissors.

Today, he faces calls for his resignation, which were rejected.

“Everyone has a responsibility.”

In an interview with CBC News on May 16, Savaş said that many of Hatay’s buildings were destroyed because “it was hard to bear” the force of the successive earthquakes.

Savaş, a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, admitted that even buildings constructed after the earthquake laws were tightened “may have defects”.

“But when the construction is done, the engineers, the companies, the contractors, the supervisors, the municipality and the government…everyone has a responsibility,” he said.

Luto Savas, Mayor of Hatay, seen in Antakya on May 16. He says that rebuilding cannot begin until the aftershocks subside. (Coren Semenoff/CBC)

He says that rebuilding cannot begin in Antakya because it would not be “scientifically correct” to start pouring foundations while aftershocks continue.

He says officials are also working on a plan to rebuild the ancient city, which has been destroyed by earthquakes several times during its 2,400-year history.

He says the plan includes restricting building heights and adding more green space in the city centre, where the soil is particularly unstable.

Warning signs

There have been many warnings and predictions by experts about Hatay’s vulnerability.

A month before the earthquakes, Şükrü Ersoy, geologist and dean of civil engineering at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, gave a presentation about Hatay’s lack of preparation.

For years, he and others have been warning about the poor location of Hatay Airport, which is built on top of a fault line and dried lake bottoms. It was constructed and opened anyway in 2007, which Ersoy considered a “political decision”.

Shuker Ersoy, dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Yildiz Technical University, is visiting Antakya, where he has expanded his family members. He was also there a month before the major earthquakes in February, to give a presentation on the region’s unpreparedness for such a disaster. (Submitted by Şükrü Ersoy)

“It is a strategic place in the Middle East,” he said, as the airport is located just 30 km from the Syrian border.

During the earthquake, its only runway was destroyed. While the airport is back up and running with limited flights, officials are debating whether and where it should be moved.

High stakes in Istanbul

Ersoy, who was one of the experts who met with Erdogan in the days after the disaster, is now repeating his warnings about what could happen next – an earthquake in Turkey’s Marmara region, near the city of Istanbul.

He says that the period of earthquake recurrence is 250 years and that the last major earthquake along this part of the fault line occurred in 1776.

“This is why there is great tension in the Sea of ​​Marmara,” he said.

A 7.0 or 7.5 earthquake is expected eventually, which could result in a tsunami. In a region of 30 million people, the number of deaths is thought to be as high as 150,000.

In the Istanbul municipality, nearly 70 percent of all buildings were built before 2000, according to Ozlem Tut, project leader for a building inspection there.

Roughly 70 percent of all Istanbul’s buildings were constructed before 2000, which is when Turkey introduced new regulations to ensure homes could better withstand major earthquakes. (Coren Semenoff/CBC)

For the past three years, city crews have been checking buildings for structural integrity and have found that about half of the roughly 30,000 buildings they looked at could collapse in a major earthquake.

Those who live in buildings most at risk can apply for financing for the renovation, but Tutt told CBC News that initially there was limited interest in the project. She said that people were afraid that their homes would be demolished if they failed the inspection.

However, after the earthquakes, Tutt said there has been a surge of interest, and her team has received more than 150,000 applications. But there are a limited number of crews to do this job.

Back in Antakya, Sinkan wants to see life return, but admits that the old town will likely never be the same again.

Inside his antique shop, he has a map of Turkey’s fault lines hanging on the wall. He says he decided to bring it up just six months before the earthquakes.

“Maybe that was a message for me,” he said. “Wake up… something bad is coming.”

watch | Residents of Hatay province deal with aftermath of February 20 earthquake: Another powerful earthquake hits Turkey and Syria Urgent calls for help are made as rescue efforts are renewed in Turkey and Syria after another massive earthquake. Monday’s quake followed an even stronger quake two weeks ago that killed more than 47,000 people.

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