Don’t go easy on unsafe buildings: Turkish earthquake lessons for Indian municipal authorities

The Turkiye earthquake offers a big lesson for urban planners, especially in India, where adherence to building codes and structural audits is uneven. (Image: Reuters)

In the early morning hours of February 6, Turkish citizens were awakened by a massive earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, followed by another measuring 7.5, which destroyed much of the infrastructure in Turkiye's 11 southeastern provinces, as well as five provinces in Syria. Over 40,000 bodies have been recovered, and experts believe the death toll could rise to 50,000 in Turkiye alone.

The massive scale of destruction over 98,000 square kilometres in Turkiye and 60,000 square kilometres in Syria made it impossible for rescue teams to reach every corner. The total population of the 10 affected provinces is more than 13.4 million people or 15 per cent of the country's total population. According to the Turkish Statistical Office, TurkStat, the affected regions account for nearly 9.3 per cent of Turkiye's GDP.

Cost Of Building Collapses

An aerial visit to the area shows heaps of rubble with few surviving buildings which look like islands. These islands are subsidised housing projects constructed by the government for the poor over the years. All other infrastructure is in rubble.

According to government figures, 19,500 multi-storey buildings were completely destroyed, 68,500 are partially damaged requiring demolition, and another 30,000 buildings require major repairs. Since the early 1980s, construction of individual houses have been prohibited, so people have to live in multistorey apartment buildings.

Although building regulations in Turkiye have been strict since the 1999 Izmit earthquake, the destruction of so many buildings has resulted in a heated debate between the government and the opposition. Most destroyed buildings appear to be from the 2000s, but many are so new that the developers were still selling vacant apartments in them.

One high-rise that collapsed in Malatya, a city near the epicentre of the second quake, had been completed just last year. Another new 12-storey building was flattened in Antakya in the nearby Hatay province. Its developer Mehmet Yasar Coskun was arrested at Istanbul airport, as he was trying to board a flight to Montenegro. The luxurious 24-story housing project called Renaissance complex with 250 apartments in the same city overlooking the Mediterranean Sea was still luring flat buyers with hoardings all over Turkiye. It came down like a pack of cards.

Using Less Steel, More Concrete

Structural engineer and earthquake specialist Mehdi Zara said most of the people killed were due to the collapse of buildings rather than the actual quake. “When buildings collapse, it means there is something wrong in their construction and design. We have technology now to make buildings earthquake resistant and minimise losses, which is evident in how the subsidised housing projects remain intact,” he said.

California based Japanese-American structural engineer Kit Miyamoto, who arrived in Ankara with a team of engineers told Turkish news channels, while building codes in Turkiye are good,  many buildings predate those codes. He said that it looks like code enforcement has not been "very robust,", which explains why new constructions could not withstand the quake.

A building deemed to be quake resistant needs a lot of horizontal steel beams at its base and then steel columns to support the vertical structure, so that it is a little flexible to return to its original position, when it is shaken by the quake. Zara said that contractors in order to save money on the steel, use concrete which does not allow the building to return to its position after tremors.

Culprit Is Political Populism 

According to government officials, most municipalities in the 11 provinces are governed by the opposition Iyi Party (Party of Good) and the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), which have liberalised regulations and procedures over the years. However, opposition parties accuse the central government of issuing safety certificates to encourage a construction boom.

Unlike India, there are no state governments in Turkiye, so all powers were vested with the central government. But as Turkiye began negotiations with the European Union for full membership in 2005, it was handed over a negotiating framework, which mandated Turkiye to undertake a number of legal, structural, social and political reforms.

One condition was to hand over massive powers to elected local bodies, which included allowing them to collect taxes, use them locally and enforce civic codes. The municipalities, in order to, attract homebuyers and collect more taxes, liberalised rules and overlooked codes at many places.

Foreigners were offered citizenships to encourage the construction boom. The developers began constructing apartments to attract Russians, Iranians, and Arabs to invest in the property business.Vice President Fuat Oktay said 131 contractors, architects and engineers linked to collapsed buildings had been identified after the tragic quakes. The Justice Ministry has established an office to investigate “earthquake crimes”.

Lessons For India

Earthquake specialist Imtiyaz Soolomin said most buildings can withstand such tremors if they are built with the right design and construction materials. Soolomin said that in most places, the magnitude of the quake was below the maximum tolerable value, leading experts to conclude that most collapsed buildings did not adhere to earthquake building codes.

The Turkiye earthquake offers a big lesson for urban planners, especially in India, where adherence to building codes and structural audits is uneven. Delhi falls in seismic zone IV, implying a high earthquake risk. Constructions, especially in unauthorised colonies, have come up without adhering to building regulations.

After the Chintel Paradiso roof collapse incident in February 2022 all joint commissioners in Gurugram were asked to carry out the safety survey in their zones to identify unsafe buildings. According to news reports, the month-long exercise led to the identification of 555 buildings, the highest 259 are in zone-3, which primarily includes parts of New Gurugram.

In July 2022, Delhi government told Delhi high court of its plan to motivate the general public for structural safety audit and retrofitting of buildings, for ensuring the safety of life and property during earthquakes. Meanwhile, Delhi Development Authority revealed that out of 10,080 buildings identified for assessing structural safety, there were a total of 4,941 high-risk buildings.

What Turkiye Does Well

In India, there is an urgent need to establish a separate insurance company at par with the LIC and make it mandatory for all house owners to insure properties at a premium that is reasonable for them. In Turkiye, buildings get utility services only if insured and paying premiums regularly.

Further the building owners have to pay an "earthquake tax” after the 1999 earthquake. An estimated 88 billion liras ($4.6 billion) is lying with the central government for disaster prevention and development of emergency services.

Armed with modern gadgets, the Zabite (enforcement) department of municipal corporations conduct annual checks on earthquake resistance of buildings. When a building is declared unsafe, municipal authorities tear it down and rebuild it without charging a penny from the owners. Insurance companies cover the cost of reconstruction and also the rent over the period when the owner vacates the house. Since each and every building has to be insured, the companies garner an estimated 19.2 billion liras annually as premiums.

In India, it may be a long haul, because of the multiplicity of authorities. Moreover, municipal corporations hardly have such powers or the technological capacity. Most parts of India’s Himalayan region, Western Ghats belt, the Kutch region, and finally the Indo-Gangetic Plain are in different earthquake zones. It is important to be prepared and have an emergency plan. The humongous and heartbreaking human tragedy unfolding in Turkiye and Syria is a warning for India’s town planners to get cracking on building violations.

Iftikhar Gilani is a journalist currently based in Ankara, Turkiye. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.