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Turkish group warns of Istanbul’s vulnerability to earthquakes

12 August 2010 22:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) Thursday warned of Istanbul’s structural deficiencies and their vulnerability to any upcoming earthquakes, APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency.

The union noted during a panel at Istanbul Technical University that Istanbul’s buildings are structurally unsound now as they were in 1999, when tens of thousands of buildings collapsed during the August 17 Izmit earthquake in which tens of thousands died.

TMMOB Istanbul Branch Director Cemal Gokce said, "The fact that not even 1 percent of structures have been reinforced in the 11 years since the 1999 earthquake is a serious concern."

He said that the Earthquake Regulation that went into effect in 2007 called for concrete to be no lower a grade than 20 megapascals, but that Istanbul’s concrete grade was around 8 megapascals.

"Istanbul’s earthquakes have no security in case of an earthquake," he said, adding that 70 percent of structures in Turkey were not certified as habitable and 37 percent were not made with official construction licenses.

He said that there are around 2,000 schools without earthquake security, only 500 of which have been reinforced or demolished and rebuilt, adding that of nearly 600 hospitals in Istanbul, only three had been reinforced.

"In the case of an earthquake, between 150 to 200 thousand structures will be severely damaged," he said.

Gokce explained that official numbers put the number of deaths in the 1999 earthquake at 20,000, but unofficial numbers put it at between 40,000 and 50,000 and warned that an upcoming earthquake in Istanbul would result in over 70,000 deaths and 250,000 injured.