Earthquakes: Did so many people have to Die? Earthquakes of Izmit and Bingöl in Turkey.

Nedanstående innehåll är skapat av Mimers Brunns besökare. Kommentera arbete

IZMIT-earthquake vs. BINGÖL-earthquake
in Turkey

BACKGROUND

On August 17, 1999 at 3:02 AM a magnitude Mw 7.4 earthquake struck Northwestern Turkey, epicentre in Kocaeli, Izmit, which has a population of 20 million inhabitants. The area also consists of almost half of the country’s industry. This earthquake has been considered as one of the world’s most devastating because of the number of casualties and damage, and the death toll, which reached up to 17,000. The location, also known as the North Anatolian has been showed to be very similar to the San Andreas fault in California. This particular fault was of horizontal motion – the east-west trending North Anatolian fault. The hardest hit city was reported to be Gölcük, where one million people were temporarily homeless. 27,164 people were recorded as injured and 54,295 buildings were estimated being damaged.

Another severe earthquake struck Bingöl in East Anatolia on may 1, 2003 with a magnitude Mw 6.4 at 07:26 AM causing severe damage in Bingöl’s villages and the death of 150 children – young students which were under the collapsed school in Çeltik in Bingöl. 1000 people were injured (population is 253,739) and the epicentre is located at about 15 km N-NW of the Bingöl city. The actual earthquake is closely related to the tectonic deformation in the wedge formed by the North and East Anatolian Faults in the East Anatolian region. The tectonics of the region are controlled by the collision of the Arabian and Eurasian Plates. The northward motion of the Arabian plate relative to Eurasia causes lateral escape of the Anatolian block to the west and the Northeast block to the east. The North Anatolian Fault is the most eminent tectonic feature of the region and one of the best known strike slip faults in the world. It is about 1500 km long, seismically active right lateral strike-slip fault system extending from the Karlıova triple junction in eastern Turkey to mainland Greece. The Bingöl earthquake took place in one of the most active regions of Turkey outlined by the Dextral North and Sinistral East Anatolian strike-slip faults and the cities of Bingöl, Karlıova and Erzincan. These faults and several small scale strike-slip faults in this region have accounted for numerous earthquakes.


BLAMES – SIMILARITIES/DIFFERENCES?

Collected data of experts and observations of these data gives a better understanding of why so many people died of these earthquakes. Many of the reasons are similar, in fact way too similar which gives a strict awareness and urges us to use our knowledge from the history of these earthquakes to not let any repetition of this kind any where in the world whatsoever. Because these reasons are humane – and should, would and could only be prevented of us humans. The main reason why so many people died was not the actual earthquake itself – the moving of the plates – but the structural failure in buildings, and the kinds of construction practice that were employed in the failed and surviving buildings. The previous Prime Minister of Turkey, Bülent Ecevit also put the blames on the municipal authorities, adding builders who had used sub-standard construction materials along with local building inspectors which has failed to do their jobs properly. The damaged buildings were very cheaply constructed with the lacking of necessary materials. It can be argued that as Turkey’s population from one time grew because of migration, super-fast houses were needed in order for people to have homes and settle down. It can also be argued that the cost of the materials were too expensive for the expansion of the population needing houses/general building. However, this is not a good excuse, considering that these houses weren’t for the most of the time, built by qualified architects, in other words, illegally built which in no way is an excuse, nevertheless the cause of more than 17,000 people’s deaths and tens of thousands of injuries. The buildings built by the qualified architects with the necessary material didn’t collapse, nor did they receive any severe damages.


WHAT CAN BE DONE/IMPROVEMENTS?

The boarding school for boys in Çeltik, Bingöl collapsed during the May 2003-earthquake, where the 150 children under the building died. This, very frustrating death of the sons of these parents could have been prevented if:
• building inspectors did their work more properly
• the building was built by the necessary material
• the builder was qualified
So what can be done other than that, regarding all of these deaths from earthquakes? First and foremost, the people in a country has to be educated, or at least have a nation with a high skilled or educated percentage. In that way we can prevent more naiveties and we can have more informed people with a range of variety of occupations. One of these could be more people studying earthquakes, or another might be more people studying architecture. In this case, Turkey is improving – having more students than it ever did, and this number is increasing.
Another way could be basic informing from the government to the public about these earthquakes and government could have stricter laws against illegally built buildings. Instead, they could provide more of the necessary material needed for adequate housing/building. To lower the price for these materials could have a certain impact on motivating builders to use this material that is needed rather than sub-standard material. O...