Reuters: Istanbulites cornered after earthquakes

The UK-based Reuters news agency shared a full story that eyes are on Istanbul after the earthquakes that rocked Turkey.

In the news, “The earthquake centered on Kahramanmaraş in which at least 50,000 people lost their lives and the fact that hundreds of people are still missing under the rubble despite the two months that have passed, the people of Istanbul, who knows that being at risk of earthquakes for many years, have made the people of Istanbul, on the one hand, live with the pain of the great disaster, and on the other hand, live in houses that are not resistant to the expected earthquake. reality. Sevgi Demiray, 25, who settled in Istanbul after university, is one of those facing this weight. A year and a half after Demiray started a new life in Istanbul, he lost his uncle and friends in Antakya, which was mostly destroyed by the Maraş earthquake, Demiray, unable to find a place to live in the city due to high rents in well-paved areas, had to leave Istanbul to avoid the fear that he would remind his family, affected by the earthquake, what they experienced in the Maraş earthquake.

“Hundreds of losses under the wreckage”

Two severe earthquakes, centered on Kahramanmaraş, which occurred one after the other on February 6, devastated a very large area in southeastern Turkey. It is claimed that hundreds of people are missing under the rubble that could not be removed despite the fact that more than two months have passed since the earthquake.

One of the deep-scarred earthquakes in Turkey, cut by three major fault lines, was the magnitude 7.8 Gölcük-centered earthquake, which killed 18,000 people in 1999, and was also felt in Istanbul.

The earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş triggered the fear of earthquakes for people living in the Marmara region and especially for Istanbulites, who are facing the problem of population density and sprawl.

“INCREASE INCREASE AND CORRECTED BUSINESS ANXIETY”

It is believed that many buildings will collapse or be damaged in a strong earthquake that may occur in Istanbul.

The latest estimates made on this subject are included in the 2019 Project to Update Estimates of Probable Earthquake Losses for Istanbul Province, which assesses Istanbul based on a 7.5 magnitude seismic scenario. According to the report prepared by the Kandilli Observatory of Boğaziçi University and the Earthquake Research Institute Department of Earthquake Engineering, it is estimated that 17% of the city’s 1.17 million buildings will suffer moderate or major damage in the earthquake. .

According to this information, although there are those who plan to leave Istanbul quickly due to the risk of an earthquake, many people are cornered.

These people state that they cannot leave the city for fear of not being able to find work in another city, and that they cannot move to Istanbul due to the high rental or sale prices in the regions that are declared to be sound.

Although Nilay, a PhD student living in Istanbul, is looking for a way to leave Istanbul with her two-month-old baby and her husband, she is stuck in Istanbul due to the lack of job opportunities in the financial sector where her husband works. in other provinces.

According to Nilay, “it is impossible to move to places that are said to have more solid ground due to the increase in prices after the earthquake.”

Research by the Bahçeşehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM) puts these complaints in numbers. According to research titled “Earthquake Hit Rents Too”, Turkey’s home rental price per square meter increased by 189.5% in February from a year earlier, while Istanbul’s rental price increased by a 138.5%.

“A LIFE THAT WILL NEVER LIVE IN FEAR ANYMORE”

The main factor in the decision of Sevgi, who moved from Istanbul to Bodrum after the earthquake hit Antakya, where his family lived, was not to make his parents feel afraid once more.

Sevgi said: “I had a beautiful life (in Istanbul). I was aware of the risk of Istanbul, but when such a big earthquake happened (in Antakya), it started to feel more real and I started to feel great anxiety. I also saw Antakya. Seeing that place made me think about what it would be like to live in Istanbul. I’m starting to not be able to sleep anymore. I did not want my family to experience the trauma of any earthquake (what is going to happen to me) here,” he said.

Saying that he searched for a house by looking at scientific reports to stay in Istanbul, but couldn’t take a step due to high rents, Sevgi said, “Now I have to give a minimum of ten while giving five. Even if I had given everything I earned, it wouldn’t have been possible.”

According to Nilay, who continues to live in Avcılar, which is a high-risk area due to job anxiety and high housing prices in robust areas, work is the biggest obstacle to moving elsewhere. Nilay said: “We thought about moving from Istanbul for fear of earthquakes. My wife and I are from Kırklareli. We can go back, we can make a very comfortable life, but we can’t find work. “Work is the biggest obstacle,” she said.

To move to a well-founded district in the same city, high payments are required. Nilay explained this situation: “(In areas with mainland) The houses suitable for our budget were very small. They put a kitchen so that it was not a pity. There are no houses where a family of three can live healthily in safer areas of Istanbul.”

Ali Ayılmazdır, president of the Mobile Home Association, said that there was unrest after the Kahramanmaraş earthquake and the number of people moving to Istanbul increased in February-March, which is not the moving season.

Ayılmazdır said that while 3-5 people searched for companies to move into in the past, 15-20 people started searching for each company after the earthquake.

REUTERS WROTE THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM

Geoscientist Professor Naci Görür made a statement on his Twitter account on March 25 and proposed a two-legged way to solve the Istanbul earthquake preparedness problem. Consequently, it is necessary to prevent the new population from coming to Istanbul, and then the weak buildings must be rebuilt with the compulsion of the public authority, without leaving them to the will of the people.

Within the framework of seven points he posted on Twitter, Görür said: “Many industrial establishments and organized industrial zones in and around Istanbul must be removed from the Marmara region… Investments that will attract people to Istanbul must be stopped… Buildings that are not earthquake resistant must be made resistant by the state itself, or they must be demolished and rebuilt. If the citizen is to be involved, cheap long-term loans should be given.

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu made a statement on March 1 after the risk of earthquakes in Istanbul resurfaced and called for the mobilization of all state institutions to make Istanbul an earthquake-resistant city. .

In the building risk measurement carried out by IMM, the number of rapid detection applicants exceeded 150,000.

According to data from the municipality’s mass housing agency, KİPTAŞ, citizens requested the demolition of approximately 490,000 houses and redevelopment at their own expense, while Urban Planning Minister Murat Kurum said in a statement two days ago that there are 1.5 million houses that are considered risky in Istanbul.

According to information provided by Kiptaş General Manager Ali Kurt, approximately 8,600 applications were made until the earthquake in the “Istanbul Renewal” project, which the Istanbul Municipality started in July 2021, in which earthquake-resistant buildings were reconstructed. at construction cost. . In the two months since the earthquake, the number of applications has tripled, to approximately 25,000.

Noting that on some projects, despite higher-than-Treasury rental and relocation assistance, no consensus could be reached, stating that the problem could be resolved if citizens accept the danger of the building in which live and show political will, Kurt said: “But the agreed implementation rate is below 1%. There is a solution? The solution is willpower. They don’t think the house is risky. If the house is at risk, the state must demolish it. Unfortunately, this is the result of bad practices done in the past. That’s why we try to use communication very forcefully, we try to give confidence”.

Taking into account that 3.2 people live in each household, according to TUIK data, it is likely that between 1.6 and 4.8 million people live in the houses that need to be renovated due to the earthquakes in Istanbul.

A possible Istanbul earthquake can cause great losses not only for the population of the region, but also for the country and the economy beyond the country. According to TUIK data, the Marmara Region’s share in gross domestic product is 41%.