ISTANBUL, March 1: Türkiye’s largest city, Istanbul, has launched a program to provide rapid building scans as many residents worry about the safety of their residences in the wake of recent devastating earthquakes that have killed more than 44,000 people in the country.
As the financial and cultural center of the country with more than 16 million inhabitants, Istanbul is located on the western edge of the North Anatolian Fault, which has produced many major earthquakes throughout history. The city government launched the scanning program in an attempt to calm the nerves of local residents.
The service, which includes measuring the consistency of the concrete and counting the amount of rebar with an X-ray scan, will assess the strength of the soil and rate the revised building safety level accordingly.
Ozlem Tut, head of the Municipality’s Department of Earthquake Risk Management and Urban Improvement, told reporters last Thursday that they have received 85,000 applications for the test since the two deadly tremors struck on February 6.
“There has been a lot of concern after the earthquakes,” Tut said, “we will respond to all of them.”
Municipal teams prioritize structures built before 2000, reviewing 150 buildings per day.
If the strength of the concrete is reported as “weak”, then it will be reinforced. If reinforcement is not possible, then the building will be demolished before a new one is built. In the event of demolition, the city provides up to 4,500 Turkish lira (US$238) in rental assistance to its residents.
In 1999, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the industrialized Marmara region, home to Istanbul, killing more than 17,000 people and leaving some 300,000 homeless. The devastation forced the authorities to adopt regulations with nominal construction quality after 2000.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu urged residents to cooperate on the issue as there is considerable work going on in the megalopolis of more than 1.16 million buildings. According to the 2021 building inventory, about half of the buildings do not meet earthquake resistance standards.
“This is a call for mobilization,” Imamoglu announced on his social media accounts. “Thousands of buildings in Istanbul must be demolished and made earthquake-proof.”
Meanwhile, Istanbul University Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine Hospital suspended all health and education services in its 17 buildings in the Fatih district complex on the European side of the city after an examination of seismic risk.
On Monday, the college’s president, Nuri Aydin, told reporters that the test results revealed that the buildings were at risk and that the evacuation had begun. This state hospital is one of the most complete health centers in the city.
Following deadly tremors in early February, many Istanbul residents plan to move into earthquake-proof buildings as authorities scramble to assess the buildings’ robustness.
Kerem Koramaz, a resident living in the Bakirkoy district on the European side of Istanbul, told Xinhua that he had requested to test the safety of his apartment, built in 2005, in case of an earthquake.
“What we need most as citizens is the technical support of local administrations and public institutions, which will be there for us during this process,” Koramaz said.
As a result, rents for new apartments have skyrocketed in the city of late.
Rents for new apartment buildings have risen 10 to 20 percent in the past 15 days, said Muttalip Iscan, an Istanbul real estate agent.
