20,000 reported dead so far. That's far from a complete tally, sadly. People were asleep in their homes when the first one hit. Many apartment buildings were n

20,000 reported dead so far. That's far from a complete tally, sadly. People were asleep in their homes when the first one hit. Many apartment buildings were not built to Turkey's post-1999 earthquake construction standards, so they collapsed. Many of those were built after 1999, but the government let developers cut corners and pay a fee for amnesty. Like COVID in the US and China, there are a lot of political pressures that will encourage an undercount.