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 Monday's disastrous quake. The traumatised country's social media users are calling for their heads. Turkish offic
Six months passed before Türkiye arrested the first suspect in the wake of another disastrous quake in 1999.Officials eventually opened 2,100 investigations against developers of collapsed buildings. They did not lead to much.The courts found fault in only 110 cases. Most of those found guilty ended up benefiting from a statute of limitation that entered into force in 2007."I do not know why the building collapse," Mehmet Yasar Coskun said.
"A private company conducted the control procedure," Seyfettin Yeral told the T24 news site."We do not have employees who can do such work."Türkiye has adopted a series of buildings standards and regulations modelled on those of California.Engineers and architects interviewed by AFP said most of Türkiye's builders manage to work their way around existing codes.
"On paper, the standards are respected, with contracts awarded to private companies responsible for controlling them," Istanbul architect Aykut Koksal said. But Koksal stressed that developers often strike private deals with companies in charge of conducting the inspections.
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