Posted on 02/12/2023 7:28:05 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
As rescuers still pulled a lucky few from the rubble six days after a pair of earthquakes devastated southeast Turkey and northern Syria, Turkish officials detained or issued arrest warrants for some 130 people allegedly involved in the construction of buildings that toppled down and crushed their occupants.
The death toll from Monday’s quakes stood at 28,191 — with another 80,000-plus injured — as of Sunday morning and was certain to rise as bodies kept emerging.
As despair also bred rage at the agonizingly slow rescue efforts, the focus turned to who was to blame for not better preparing people in the earthquake-prone region that includes an area of Syria that was already suffering from years of civil war.
Even though Turkey has, on paper, construction codes that meet current earthquake-engineering standards, they are too rarely enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings slumped onto their side or pancaked downward onto residents.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
How many politicians will be arrested?
They don’t mess around.
What about THE GOVERNMENT’S BUILDING INSPECTORS?
Now there is the question!
They’ll probably be accused of conspiring with the Gulen org. Never let a crisis go to waste.
I was in a small town in 71-72 on the Black Sea. I wondered how their buildings would survive an earthquake then. It reminds me of a story a tiger hunter in the 19th century told about a village being terrorized by predators. He said he advised them to build a wall around the village. They said the danger was too great. He said they should build it when the tigers aren’t there. They responded that when the tigers aren’t around, there is no need for a wall.
It looks like they never heard of rebar.
Turkey has an election in three months May 14th.
President Erdogan has to deal with that harsh reality so the harsh actions to deflect blame.
You’d think they’d have more to do right now besides looking for scapegoats.
Turks...could be protective custody.
Sounds like a few bureaucratic palms were greased.
Exactly. Contractors could not have skimped unless the government inspectors were paid off.
The corruption and rot reaches all the way up. I wonder how far up the arrests will go. If any.
I'm thinking that building inspection could be done better by the insurance company, who would have an incentive to ensure THEIR inspectors were not bought off.
Exactly 💯.
Actually they very much did. That’s why their buildings weren’t up to code. Now they’re closing the barn door after the cows have been killed.
Funny you mention rebar!
In watching a lot of videos of the damage, there is a lot of rebar shown.
But the strange thing is that you never see clumps of concrete stuck to it. All the surrounding concrete just looks like a bunch of clinker stone and the rebar is bare!
In the US, if a wall with rebar is knocked over, it stays together really well with the concrete all sticking together. The Turks are obviously doing something wrong.
The guilty ones will emigrate to the USA.
How much of those building materials were made in China?
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