Amid other potent challenges confronting the international community, global attention has shifted to Turkey and Syria, where powerful 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes respectively, on February 6, devastated parts of both Middle-East countries. The quakes that ripped through south-east Turkey and north-west Syria are among the deadliest recorded over the past century. By Thursday, the death toll had climbed to 42,000 and close to 120,000 others injured. The world should rally round to provide help to the traumatised populations.
The disaster should remind world leaders that humanity is endangered by natural and man-made threats –climate change; floods, quakes, wildfires, hunger, and poverty – that require collaboration, funds, and peace. They should pivot away from the current mutual belligerence, conflict and the deadly new arms race stoked by needless rivalries.
As the number of dead pulled out of the rubble topped 42,000, the United Nations issued a frantic appeal for $397 million in emergency funding to provide “life-saving relief” for five million Syrians affected by the catastrophe. Both countries are in dire straits. But Syria is particularly fraught with civil strife since 2011.Its major global partner, Russia, is bogged down in its year-old, ill-advised invasion of Ukraine, and its ruling regime is hostile towards the Western bloc that usually responds with most substantial humanitarian aid.
The West will need to put politics aside to provide humanitarian assistance – food, medical care, shelter, and clothing – for the hapless people of Syria and Turkey, irrespective of their sentiments and ideological leanings.
More importantly, scientists have read the riot act to Istanbul, Turkey’s megacity, and commercial hub, about the possibility of experiencing another powerful earthquake anytime. The government should heed their advice and commence preparations to avoid being caught unawares again.
Apart from the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti that killed more than 300,000 people, the Turkey-Syria earthquake is the worst globally since 2010. The Washington Post describes it as the most powerful to have hit Turkey since 1939 and the deadliest in more than 80 years. About 23 million people, including 1.4 million children, were likely to be affected in both countries by this disaster, said the World Health Organisation.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s President, Tayyip Erdogan, has declared a three-month state of emergency in 10 southern provinces, saying 13 million of the country’s 85 million-strong population are impacted. Syria, before the quake, was acutely short of aid due to its 11-year-old civil war, prompting concerns by the UN, whose Under-secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, said, “We have so far failed the people in North-West Syria. They rightly feel abandoned.”
Turkey’s neighbourhood is unusually seismically active even though it is far from the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’ known to generate the world’s strongest earthquakes. But the horrifying impact of the quake has been attributed to shoddy construction practices and lack of preparedness, which the country had vowed to improve in the wake of a catastrophic earthquake near Istanbul in 1999.
Experts fault the enforcement of Turkey’s construction codes in some of the newest apartment blocks that crumbled to dust during the quake. A professor at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul noted, “Had building codes been respected, you would have had damage, but not such pancake collapses.”
Critics had for long strongly opposed the construction amnesties, which the Turkish government had been issuing since the 1960s precisely because they posed a risk in case an earthquake occurred. The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects’ Chamber of City Planners disclosed that 75,000 buildings across the affected earthquake zone in southern Turkey had been given the controversial amnesties.
But the backlash has started; as Erdogan seeks to deflect blame, he has gone after the construction companies. Officials have issued arrest warrants for 130 contractors over safety code breaches and several have been taken into custody.
With a sluggish growth and inflation rate of 57.7 per cent (per Trading Economics), the disaster will exacerbate Turkey’s economic woes as the afflicted regions account for 10 per cent of the country’s GDP. Turkey’s main stock index fell 15 per cent in the first three days after the quakes. The Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum projects a loss of 2.0 percentage points of GDP in tourism revenue alone.
There are useful lessons to be learnt. The disaster underscores the importance of robust enforcement of disaster-resilient and environmental laws in mitigating the impact of natural disasters. It also accentuates the role that emergency preparedness plays in reducing mortalities.
Nigeria’s federal, state, and local governments need to put in place appropriate infrastructure to prevent and combat natural and man-made disasters. This involves taking seriously the advisories of agencies such as the Nigerian Meteorological Agency and the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, and activating effective public enlightenment programmes to sensitise the public.
Unlike Turkey’s authorities, Nigeria rarely prosecutes those connected to the many building collapse incidents in the country. The Lagos State branch of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild has tallied a staggering 115 incidents in the state within the last 10 years, with the highest number of incidents recorded in 2020 and 2022.
Even after cases of criminal negligence, disregard for prescribed standards, and professional misconduct have been established, Nigerian governments have been slow to enforce the law against violators; thereby encouraging unscrupulous developers and enabling more disasters. In Lagos State, the collapse of a six-storey building of the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Ikotun that killed 116 people in2014, and the high-rise building in Ikoyi that collapsed in 2022 killing 46 persons are notable examples.
Such abdication of responsibility must stop. Government at all levels should adequately fund, equip and train personnel of first responder agencies and bring them up to global best standards. The much-abused Ecological Fund must cease to be a conduit for embezzlement, or for funding political parties, and put to effective use. With a modest contribution, the Nigerian government should join the rest of the world in helping Turkey and Syria at their hour of need.
