Related article from 2017, basically predicting this disaster would be worse than need be...
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/09/07/547608828/turkey
One wonders if the filling of open areas was also considered to reduce the risk of them becoming protest areas?
Now, IF the buildings that went into those open areas were really built to reliably withstand any likely quake, I can see that they would be an asset, becoming lots of shelter after a quake. But, if not so built...
“it was corruption”...
Let’s have the UN outlaw corruption, like it did for child trafficking and slavery... That should do it !!!
On the morning of February 6, a pair of powerful earthquakes, 7.8 and 7.6, hit Turkey and Syria. On top of that, the region was hit with strong aftershocks, which made the destruction even worse. The death toll is already in the tens of thousands with many victims still lying beneath the rubble.
Multiple factors led to this earthquake being so devastating, like fault lines, neighborhoods still reeling from war and delayed rescue missions. But what made this earthquake particularly catastrophic was unsafe buildings. According to the Turkish government, over 6,000 buildings collapsed because of this earthquake. And that’s likely because of the way they were built.
This video will explain how bad building design made the Turkey-Syria earthquake more deadly than it had to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnlCRoBAcuw