“We’re trying to find my niece, Rukiye,” a tired-looking man with bloodshot eyes informed native reporters as he peered by means of the twisted stays of a hospital within the southern Turkish province of Hatay on Wednesday.

“She is 23, a nurse. She entered the hospital hours after the primary earthquake to assist evacuate sufferers. The constructing collapsed on her when the second earthquake hit. She saved so many, however couldn’t get out herself. We all know she was alive for no less than 16 hours – she known as her husband from below the rubble. However now the rescuers say she is probably going gone.”

Hundreds of individuals like Rukiye are believed to nonetheless be caught within the particles of collapsed buildings throughout Turkey’s southeast following Monday’s devastating earthquakes. In response to the federal government, two main tremors and lots of of aftershocks destroyed no less than 6,444 buildings throughout 10 provinces, killing greater than 12,800 folks as of Thursday afternoon.

A tragic mixture

As rescuers proceed to look by means of the rubble on the lookout for miracles, the nation is now making an attempt to grasp why this pure catastrophe – for which Turkey was supposedly getting ready for greater than 20 years – brought on a lot injury to the nation’s infrastructure.

Was it that the 2 earthquakes – the primary at a magnitude of seven.8 and the second at 7.6 – had been just too violent for many buildings to outlive? Or that the buildings had been lower than fashionable building requirements?  Was there negligence on the a part of the authorities?

In response to Professor Okan Tuysuz, a geological engineer from Istanbul Technical College, a tragic mixture of all the above led to Monday’s disaster.

“We’re coping with really huge earthquakes right here,” Tuysuz informed Al Jazeera. “The primary one was roughly equal to the power launch from an explosion of about 5 million tonnes of TNT. The second was equal to three.5 million tonnes. Most buildings would wrestle to face up to such drive.”

Sinan Turkkan, civil engineer and president of Turkey’s Earthquake Retrofit Affiliation, agreed. “Not solely had been the earthquakes extraordinarily forceful, however additionally they hit in fast succession,” he defined. “Many buildings solely acquired mild to medium injury within the first quake however collapsed after the second.”

Whereas factoring in that tremors at these magnitudes in fast succession would pose a danger to any constructing, specialists underlined {that a} tragedy on this scale was not in any method inevitable.

“In response to official estimates, 6,000 to 7,000 buildings collapsed on Monday. Nevertheless robust, no earthquake might have brought on this a lot injury if all buildings had been as much as customary,” Turkkan mentioned.

On Wednesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended his authorities’s preparations for and response to the earthquakes throughout a go to to the catastrophe zone, saying it was “unimaginable for anybody to organize for the dimensions of the catastrophe”.

He then went on to say that the state will rebuild all collapsed buildings in all 10 provinces affected by the earthquake inside a yr.

“Identical to we did in Malatya, Elazig, Bingol, Van [we will rebuild here]. This can be a enterprise we all know properly. Our authorities proved its capacity [to rebuild] time and time once more previously. We are going to obtain the identical in Hatay, in Maras and likewise in eight different affected provinces”.

A lot of the buildings that collapsed on Monday had been constructed earlier than 1999, when a magnitude 7.6 earthquake hit the Western Marmara area, killing 17,500 folks. Since then, the federal government improved the Turkish seismic design code considerably and in 2008, launched into an formidable city transformation challenge to organize Turkey for the following massive earthquake.

Code enforcement

In November 2022, after a magnitude 6 earthquake broken greater than 2,000 buildings in Duzce, northern Turkey, atmosphere and urbanisation minister Murat Kurum underlined that the authorities had been working in direction of making each constructing within the nation “earthquake protected by 2035”.

“We already rebuilt 3.2 million residences,” Kurum mentioned in a social media publish. “250,000 residences throughout 81 provinces and 992 districts are at present being remodeled [to meet current regulations]. 6.6 million homes and companies have been audited. 24 million of our residents are at present residing in earthquake-safe abodes.”

These formidable efforts, nonetheless, weren’t in a position to stop the catastrophe.

“On paper, Turkey’s seismic design code is as much as international requirements – it’s really higher than most,” Turkkan mentioned. “In apply, nonetheless, the scenario may be very totally different.”

The federal government supplied monetary incentives however didn’t make participation in its city transformation challenge obligatory. This successfully meant solely individuals who had been able to generate income from rebuilding – folks in possession of worthwhile plots appropriate for additional improvement  – agreed to demolish their outdated properties and rebuild in response to the most recent code. Many didn’t wish to spend cash on rebuilding work or reinforcements that didn’t appear pressing. This is the reason, specialists say, greater than 20 years after the Marmara earthquake, Turkey is stuffed with buildings constructed utilizing sub-par supplies and long-discredited building strategies that instantly crumble when confronted with a powerful tremor.

“This saddens me deeply as an engineer,” Turkkan mentioned. “If we managed to get everybody on board, we might have both strengthened or rebuilt all faulty buildings previously 20 years. We might have saved no less than 5,000 of the buildings that we misplaced on Monday from full destruction. We might have saved many, many lives.”

Consultants imagine the federal government and native authorities might have taken additional precautions to make sure all buildings had been protected and earthquake design rules are being applied in all contexts.

“For years we held conferences, wrote studies and despatched them to native authorities. We informed them massive earthquakes will inevitably hit cities like Hatay and Gaziantep once more,” Tuysuz mentioned. “We defined to them nonetheless robust, no constructing constructed immediately on a fault line can survive an earthquake – it might be torn aside. We mentioned we must always create correct fault-line maps for the complete nation and remodel areas immediately on energetic fault traces into inexperienced zones with building bans. Nobody listened.”

Even new buildings had been missing

There have been additionally shortcomings in guaranteeing rules had been being adopted in new building.

“Some comparatively new buildings additionally collapsed on this earthquake, which seemingly means contractors took shortcuts, tried to economise utilizing sub-par supplies and authorities did not do their due diligence earlier than approving building tasks,” Tuysuz mentioned.

A number of colleges, administrative buildings, hospitals and even the headquarters of Turkey’s Catastrophe and Emergency Administration Authority (AFAD) in Hatay additionally collapsed on Monday.

“In response to the state’s personal rules, public buildings are speculated to be a lot stronger than non-public ones,” Turkkan defined. “If you find yourself constructing a hospital, a publish workplace or another public constructing, you might be instructed to make use of extra concrete, extra iron, get extra detailed floor research. That is to make sure these buildings survive any earthquake or different pure catastrophe and in order that they will proceed serving folks at a time of disaster”.

Tuysuz agreed. “It’s utterly unacceptable for a public constructing, an influence plant or an airport to break down in an earthquake,” he mentioned. “There are very strict rules in place to stop this. The scenes we’re witnessing at this time within the southeast are proof of the state’s shortcomings in implementing its personal guidelines even in constructions over which it has full management.”

So what must be executed?

There are some 20 million buildings in Turkey. In Istanbul, the place specialists imagine a significant earthquake will hit eventually, there are 1.2 million, in response to the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Analysis Institute at Bogazici College. Their specialists imagine a big proportion of those buildings are usually not in a situation to face up to tremors at excessive magnitudes.

Reinforcing or rebuilding all at-risk buildings in all earthquake-prone areas can be technically and logistically tough and expensive. But it’s a activity that can not be averted or delayed.

“The federal government must be extra forceful in making folks get their buildings audited, strengthened and if essential rebuilt,” Turkkan mentioned. “Individuals are understandably not volunteering to pay up, however this can be a matter of life and dying, and it ought to be handled as such.