TURKEY DEMANDS SHODDY BUILDERS MUST STAND TRIAL
ANKARA: Their mugshots are everywhere: a Turkish developer arrested while trying to flee the country, and two colleagues connected to a luxurious apartment tower that crumbled in last week’s disastrous quake.
The traumatised country’s social media users are calling for their heads. Turkish officials are turning them into the focus of public outrage at the shoddy business dealings that appear to have contributed to the disaster’s almost unfathomable scale.
And architects view the collapse of the 12-storey luxury apartment block Ronesans Tower in Antakya as a symbol of Turkey’s inability to maintain building standards that could have dramatically reduced the catastrophic toll.
Turkish officials have responded to the outrage by announcing investigations and arrests linked to the construction and development business. So far, 113 arrest warrants have been issued and 12 people have been taken into custody, including a building contractor who was caught at Istanbul airport about to fly to Montenegro. Two developers were trying to relocate to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
The problem for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is that the Ronesans Tower case is far from unique. Developers have erected towers on fault lines and in quakeprone regions that have been bracing for a major jolt for years.
The Ronesans project’s developer has pleaded innocence. “I do not know why the building collapsed,” Mehmet Yasar Coskun said. “All the permits were issued after studies by the municipality and the oversight company.” A local mayor who issued the building permit in 2021 denied responsibility as well.
Two dozen Cypriot students and 11 accompanying adults who were in Turkey for a volleyball tournament died when their hotel collapsed.
NTV television said the hotel was briefly closed due to construction “irregularities”. But then it reopened its doors. “I want these people to face justice. They are murderers,” an unnamed witness said.