03.11.2011

State fault lines exposed

Esen Uslu reports on the tremors that devastated Van province and examines the horrors perpetrated by official bureaucracy

The October 23 earthquake that hit Van province on a nice, warm Sunday at midday had devastating consequences. However, they could have been far worse, had the quake hit in the middle of a night or on a working day - or during cold weather, when more people would have been inside their homes. It was the most severe earthquake in Turkey since 1999.

To date there have been more than 600 confirmed deaths, about 2,000 serious injuries and still quite a number of missing people - presumed to be dead, somewhere under the debris of collapsed buildings. The epicentre was just north of the mainly Kurdish province near the eastern shore of Lake Van, along a little known fault line that passes through the Tabanli village. Ercis, a town on the north-eastern shore of the lake, and Van city on the eastern shore, as well as several villages lying between them, were badly affected.

Many of these villages contain traditional houses and animal shelters, built without proper foundations from thick stone and mud-brick walls. Their timber joists support compact-earth flat ceilings. This type of construction was well known to be prone to collapse in the event of an earthquake, and that is what happened - inhabitants were crushed by the heavy walls and ceilings, and many who were not instantly killed were suffocated by the dust.

However, the greatest number of deaths occurred in Ercis and Van city, where more modern constructions crumbled. Many of them were official buildings, such as schools, dormitories, health facilities, etc, constructed following a competitive tendering process. Virtually all of them were built with utter disregard for building regulations - for the sake of quick profits.

Following the 1999 earthquake, building regulations were strengthened, but it seems all such rules in Turkey are destined to remain on paper. Many newly appointed young teachers as well as students were killed in halls of residence or meeting halls. Most of the buildings that collapsed were reinforced concrete structures. Regulations state that such structures should use only ribbed steel reinforcement bars, together with concrete quality that has a certain minimum compressive strength. They should have been designed to withstand huge lateral forces.

What is more, urban planning and the selection of building sites ignored geological surveys and soil mechanics. For example, in Van the ramshackle structures on the shore of the lake were cleared by the municipality, since the sand on which they were built could not provide strong enough foundations. However, a couple of years later, the central state bureaucracy bypassed the local administration, and constructed several official buildings on the notoriously unsuitable site.

In their wisdom Turkish officialdom as well as politicians always seem to find ways of avoiding the ‘burden’ of regulations. Neither municipality departments nor the central state bureaucracy has the necessary teeth to deal with this non-compliance. Corruption, political nepotism and a lack of openness and accountability are the norm. The price can now be counted in human life and suffering, but everyone knows that no official will be held responsible for this gross misconduct and negligence.

The naked greed of ‘quick buck’ capitalists knows no bounds. Many of the high-rise buildings along the main streets in both urban areas have small shops on the ground floor. Some of the most prestigious locations were occupied by car dealers, who merged several small shops into a single showroom by removing some of the columns supporting upper floors - without even notifying the municipality, let alone seeking building permission.

Anti-Kurd chauvinism

In early summer the covert peace talks between the Turkish state and the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) ended in failure. Since then both sides have been intensifying their attacks. In the increasingly tense situation a major incident occurred on October 19, just a few days before the Van earthquake. A well coordinated series of guerrilla attacks on army posts on the Iraqi border killed 24 soldiers and wounded several others. In response the army sent out 22 battalions into the mountains, where there was vicious fighting.

The government was quick to grasp the opportunity presented by the earthquake to portray itself as the saviour of ordinary Kurds - it was determined not to let Kurdish freedom fighters exploit the shortcomings and failures of the Turkish state. Everyone from the prime minister to local army units and NGOs was flown into Van. The mainstream media highlighted the heroic efforts of rescuers and the influx of aid into the region.

However, the creaking state machinery, institutionally neglectful and bigoted against Kurds, was not easily brought to life. The all-powerful governor (appointed by the central government to each province) has long refused to cooperate with the elected mayor, who belongs to the Peace and Democracy Party (the electoral name of the Kurdish freedom movement) and did not see any reason to change his ways. To date they have not even met. The central bureaucracy did not provide even a single seat for the elected representatives of the people on its emergency bodies.

But it is not only the rival political forces that do not trust each other. There was also antagonism between the specialist rescue teams trained by rival fiefdoms and many expert volunteers were badly treated as a result. However, in the end the crews’ sound sense of cooperation won the day. They managed to dig about 180 survivors out of rubble despite the interference of the competing bureaucracies.

On the other hand, the required heavy construction machinery, ambulances and transport were made available and disrupted services were quite quickly operational again. The local hospitals in Van and in the neighbouring provinces shared the burden, and serious cases were airlifted to Ankara. These aspects of the rescue effort indicate the development that has taken place in even the poorest regions of Turkey over the last 20 or 30 years.

Despite this, the mistrust of Kurds created such unbelievable imbalances in the distribution of resources that many outside observers were astounded by the sheer stupidity of the situation. The Red Crescent (as the Turkish Red Cross is known - the name itself reveals the problem) has no distribution centre east of the Euphrates river - ie, in the Kurdish provinces - despite the fact that the region is known as a primary earthquake zone. As a result, for days winter-grade tents could not be distributed, since they had to be airlifted from warehouses in Ankara. While the airport remained operational, it could not handle large cargo planes. There is not a single civilian airport in the region with that capability.

The soft Islamist government at first turned away aid offers from ‘Christian countries’ and Israel, while it accepted aid from Azerbaijan and Iran. After a couple of days it was obliged to acknowledge its shortcomings, and invited aid from elsewhere. However, the bottleneck created by the lack of airlift capability slowed everything down. Now, more than a week after the disaster, there are still villages where people have no proper shelter, with the harsh winter of the eastern Anatolian highlands looming.

Usually after an earthquake in Turkey, people’s humanity comes to the fore. There are campaigns to send goods, donate money and organise volunteers.

However, this time the ongoing war and the anti-Kurd, chauvinistic propaganda organised by the state had an ugly effect. The social media such as Facebook was full of bigotry, as were the comments sections of newspapers - articles commented on the lessons the unruly Kurds should learn from the divine retribution represented by the earthquake. Popular television presenters joined in this chorus and Islamists played a particularly disgraceful role in fanning the ‘fire and brimstone’ flames (there is no ‘hate crime’ or anti-discrimination provision in the Turkish penal code).

Of course, a large section of the Turkish population was strongly opposed to this venom and politicians were quick to react. But bigotry is deeply ingrained - some went to such depths as to send packages containing stones and bearing spiteful massages instead of blankets.

On the third day of rescue operations came news from the war front: the expeditionary forces of the Turkish army killed more then 35 guerrillas, and 24 badly disfigured and burnt bodies were brought to a morgue in a neighbouring province for identification. One commentator aptly remarked: “Why rescue children from the rubble, only to kill them later in the mountains?”

The state has taken advantage of the increased military activity to stage mass arrests of alleged Union of Kurdish Communities supporters. This time the net was cast wide and among those held were the prominent left academic, Dr B