Europe | Building bad

Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

The death toll has now reached 42,000, making the quakes the most lethal in the country’s modern history

HATAY, TURKIYE - FEBRUARY 13: Relatives of the victims wait to receive news as personnel conduct search and rescue operations in Hatay, following 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes hit Turkiyeâs Kahramanmaras, on February 13, 2023. On Feb. 06 a strong 7.7 earthquake, centered in the Pazarcik district, jolted Kahramanmaras and strongly shook several provinces, including Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Adana, Adiyaman, Malatya, Osmaniye, Hatay, and Kilis. Later, at 13.24 p.m. (1024GMT), a 7.6 magnitude quake centered in Kahramanmaras' Elbistan district struck the region. (Photo by Sergen Sezgin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Image: Getty Images
|OSMANIYE, KAHRAMANMARAS AND ADIYAMAN

WHEN THE quake hit, the apartment block in Osmaniye, where Halise Sen had once lived, collapsed like a house of cards, burying her former neighbours under nine floors of concrete. Mrs Sen, the head of the local chamber of architects, looks over the wreckage. “There’s no reinforced steel here,” she says, “so the concrete lost its strength and the columns collapsed, along with the floors, as soon as the ground started to shake.”

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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Building bad”

From the February 18th 2023 edition

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