The disastrous earthquake in Turkey and Syria is, of course, not the first one in the region.  Rescue and relief rangers are still saving people from under the ruins, but… People tend to ask rather logical questions, one of which is -–Why so many casualties?  Why houses collapsed, as if made of cards?

Blogger Alina Mustafina is not domiciled in Turkey. For her, the tragedy is not news – it is pain and sorrow, her friends, colleagues and relatives are experiencing now.  Generalizing what she saw and heard, she writes – no lessons were learned from previous earthquakes. 

Literal translation below:

24 Years

My Turkish husbands says that Turkey had 24 years to prepare to the earthquake. In 1999, a disastrous 7.6 Richter earthquake happened in Istanbul. Emre (Alina’s husband) did his studies, when his family’s tenuous house almost collapsed. Emre became a relief volunteer. Volunteers were rescuing people from under ruins and saved many lives just in the very last several days. Rescuers, as a rule, stop all operations in one week following the earthquake. Then, machines start sweeping away the ruins and debris, the town gets sealed-off for quarantine and they stop looking for people…

What Was To Be Done?

In the 24 years, following the Istanbul earthquake, they were supposed to inspect all old houses. They were supposed to re-engineer tenuous buildings. They had to monitor corruption and build houses with real, not bought permits  — Alina’s husband added.

Outcome – in all these years after the tragedy that claimed 20 thousand lives, the Government re-engineered only some buildings and houses in Istanbul, ignoring the provinces, where the uncontrolled construction and development were taking place. 

Despite the official statistics (more than 12 thousand casualties as of the morning of 9 February), forecasts insists that the count of victims shall increase several-fold.  And how many people lost their homes? And those, whose houses stood, cannot inhabit them now.  Because every surviving house must be inspected and reinforced, if necessary. 

Life-Capsules

In Japan, the country where high magnitude earthquakes happen regularly, there are apartments with special life-capsules. You can jump in there and save your life.

Japan takes regular steps to reduce the headcount of victims – they train people how to behave in the course of an earthquake and how to rescue people in the ruins. But their major achievement is that their houses withstand high-impact shocks. 

Turks are in shock – they saw a collapsed strategic facility – landing strip in the Hatay Airport. How can you rely on evacuation and humanitarian aid, under such conditions?…

What about our reality? What about Almaty? What about construction, norms, regulations and measures of prevention and relief?

I am afraid to even think about that …