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Videos show Turkey's Erdogan boasted letting builders avoid earthquake codes

274 points by Zigurd 4y ago

cs702 4y ago
At first I thought the headline was click-bait, but it's actually accurate. The videos really, truly show Erdogan repeatedly boasting about giving "amnesty" to private builders to ignore regulatory codes in order to "solve" Turkey's housing shortage. It appears that a majority of the thousands of buildings that crumbled into dust when the earthquake struck were constructed under such "amnesty." In hindsight, Erdogan looks like a naive moron, and the private builders who put innocent lives at risk to maximize short-term profit look like movie villains.
- mc32 4y ago
  It's so like people who do wrong. He's accusing the developers of flouting construction code and jailing them when he encouraged them to take the shortcuts all along!
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    The scapegoating was so predictable that quite a few apartment block owners, contractors, architects and other people involved in the building industry fled abroad. And a whole bunch of them that moved just a little bit slower were nabbed at the airport whilst waiting for their flights.
- tromp 4y ago
  The tragedy is that this horrible practice of building for failure did not meet with public outcry when publicly admitted years ago but had to await actual failure...
  - ploum 4y ago
    We had a similar story in Belgium. Politicians decided that houses could now safely be built in flood zones because "we had no major flood for the last 20-40 years". (and it could safely be assumed that at least some of them benefited privately from those decisions, it’s a common practice here) Guess what happened in 2021 ? yep… The most deadly flood in human memory. Guess what happened to those politicians ? Yep, absolutely nothing.
- 2devnull 4y ago
  [flagged]
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  Not just in hindsight. Buildings not built to code crumbling when an inevitable earthquake hits was foreseeable.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  But the man does own the courts and pretty much all politicians, so there's very little anyone can do. He threw his biggest political opponent in jail so he can win the next presidential "election" in peace.
  - grugagag 4y ago
    It starts with one nail in the coffin, then another one, then another one.. Eventually most autocrats ends up badly after some time.
  - at-fates-hands 4y ago
    He also blamed all the developers and immediately arrested them: Vice President Fuat Oktay said overnight that 131 suspects had so far been identified as responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened in the 10 provinces affected by the tremors early last Monday. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-steps-up-collapsed-buildings-investigation-orders-113-arrested-2023-02-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-steps-up-co...
    - TylerE 4y ago
      Well, I mean, they should be, too. Nothing forcing them to request such an "amnesty" except greed.
      - munk-a 4y ago
        These folks definitely deserve a pretty big penalty levied on them - but if the policy of giving out these sorts of amnesties isn't reformed we can expect a repeat. I'm concerned that the government is going to force all of the blame onto these contractors for political reasons and won't end up enacting any reforms of inspectors since it'd make Erdogan look bad.
      - gameman144 4y ago
        It seems pretty ridiculous for a government official to say "I am giving you permission to bypass these rules" and then arrest them for breaking those rules. Sure, requesting an exemption may be an act of greed, but the role of responsible government is to say "No, those rules are there for a reason". If developers legally bypassed regulations due to the government saying it's okay, the buck should absolutely stop with the government, and the question should be why they allowed those exemptions.
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- quantified 4y ago
  Just call them "indulgences" to align with history. With foresight everyone knew it would end badly. The safety measures whose variances were being indulged were the result of bitter experience. How much concrete (and GHG emission and coal inputs) were just wasted?
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    > How much concrete (and GHG emission and coal inputs) were just wasted? I would put the lives lost first on that list. The tragedy is incredible.
- roenxi 4y ago
  It certainly sounds stupid, but in the spirit of completeness this is forming a conclusion with insufficient evidence and part of a typical emotional response that makes people do stupid things. We don't live forever, and sustained mass homelessness is arguably pretty bad too. If Turkey can't afford indestructible houses then maybe Erdogan made the right decision and it just happens that all the outcomes sucked. Although given the evidence in the article it does look like a catastrophe (20k dead for 350k housed sounds is a bad deal, albeit we can't possibly know that all 20k were from zoning issues) the news right after a disaster is usually highly misleading.
  - seydor 4y ago
    What are you talking about? This isnt the first earthquake in the region, it s a story that goes back thousands of years of written history. Most countries in the area have changed their codes and now build houses that are very resistant to earthquakes. Earthquakes happen all the time, (arguably not as big) but rarely you hear about such damages. Turkey has a problem of bad building, like what happened with the Izmir earthquake in 2020
    - roenxi 4y ago
      Which presumably is no secret and which would have been considered in the decision making - indeed, everyone involved would have known that the next earthquake would have worse consequences. The issue I have - and it is in your comment as well as elsewhere - is you are using an argument that this situation was predictable. That isn't enough. You have to argue that the costs in this disaster outweighed the benefits of a lighter building code. My guess would be that they probably do, the death count is quite high. But that is no excuse for sloppy, knee-jerk thinking. We need less of that.
      - seydor 4y ago
        It's not knee jerk thinking. Even turkey has nominally strict building codes because of all the previous earthquakes. And it s not like it s running out of land to build. Nobody in this region thinks it could possibly be a good thing to skirt building codes. Earthquakes are frequent enough to be constant reminders of it
- jefftk 4y ago
  > it's actually accurate Are we sure? I would normally interpret "zoning amnesty" to mean "you wouldn't normally be allowed to build that thing there, but we'll allow it", and letting people avoid earthquake codes would be more like "building code amnesty". Did these certificates actually exempt projects from the building code?
  - sonefromturkey 4y ago
    It works as "you built your building, we will allow you to keep it and legalize it"
    - InCityDreams 4y ago
      The Italian equivalent is 'sanification', so yes.
  - dandelany 4y ago
    The phrase "zoning amnesty"/"zoning peace" is like the "death tax" or the "green new deal" - a way of rebranding a controversial political issue to make it seem incontroversial and obvious. It's called this precisely so that uninformed citizens will make the same mistake and think "Yes, why should people be homeless over some trivial political bullshit like zoning laws?" From everything I've been able to find, it was building code amnesty, in effect. The proliferation of these laws in Turkey, dating back all the way to the 1940s, created a culture where builders could basically build what they want, without the necessary permits/code enforcement, confident in the knowledge that they would fall under the next decree of amnesty and never be required to fix it. "...more than 50 percent of the buildings in Turkey were constructed in violation of the current building code... Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) Ankara branch chair Selim Tulumtaş warned .. that the legislation put the lives of 2.7 million people across the country at risk since they live in shoddily constructed buildings." https://www.turkishminute.com/2023/02/13/turkey-construction-amnesty-under-spotlight-dead-earthquake/ https://www.turkishminute.com/2023/02/13/turkey-construction...
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- slim 4y ago
  A Turkish friend told me at the time those buildings were being built that Erdogan was buying votes and loyalty from those buildings inhabitants. So he is absolutely not innocent
canadiantim 4y ago
TIL: In 2018, even the Urbanization Ministry acknowledged that half of the structures in Turkey did not adhere to the relevant regulations.
netsharc 4y ago
What will probably happen next/Free playbook for Recep: claim the videos are deepfaked and fake news, and ban their publication, and jail anyone who claims he ever said those things. The goal is to minimize the spread of this information before the election.
- baybal2 4y ago
  Erdo, and AK ratings have tanked so hard already that there is no chance he will be winning anywhere fairly at all. Now, the question is whether will he go for electoral fraud, or leave his post knowing for sure that a jail term awaits him.
  - neoberg 4y ago
    Knowing the people there; I'd be surprised if he didn't come even stronger after all this.
    - cwilkes 4y ago
      “Only I know how to fix such a corrupt system as I’ve seen it from the inside”
      - kyriakos 4y ago
        Or put blame on external actors as usual.
  - rodgerd 4y ago
    My understanding is that a significant amount of Edrogan's support actually comes from foreign-resident voters - either expat Turks or people with dual citizenship. There are e.g. British and Germans with Turkish citizenship who don't have to deal with the fallout of voting for him, but love his rhetoric and persona.
  - kyriakos 4y ago
    Jail could be the least of his worries if he loses upcoming elections. If he's about to lose his best option is to flee the country.
baybal2 4y ago
The actual video https://youtu.be/MxVuuxJalb4 https://youtu.be/MxVuuxJalb4
shmatt 4y ago
Unfortunately even the most modern nations have politicians pushing to "cut red tape" Im truly shocked the private sector in Turkey didn't solve this problem themselves, and needed government oversight to make sure they're doing their job correctly
- im3w1l 4y ago
  I think that's a healthy thing. Regulation has advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes it goes too far and sometimes it doesn't go far enough. So it makes sense to have people advocating both more and less of it.
  - altcognito 4y ago
    This is a really sensible comment, and furthermore, what solutions work in South Dakota won't make sense in New York. Having a robust, flexible system of regulation that is debated without becoming an identity is healthy.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    A good example of this is Nuclear and the East-Palestine / Ohio derailments from a few days ago. Nuclear is prohibitively expensive due to regulations, while more dangerous situations such as trains carrying hazardous chemicals had regulations cut [1] not too long ago. [1] https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/trump-administration-loosening-regulations-for-rail-transportation-of-flammable-natural-gas https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/trump-administration-loos...
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  The red tape people are asking to be cut isn't basic safety regulations, generally speaking. Japan is the reference Turkey was supposed to follow for dealing with earthquakes, and Japan is known for both building being fairly easy ("as of right"), and also for being relatively strict for earthquake resistance. You can have both.
  - manuelabeledo 4y ago
RGamma 4y ago
Perfect example of "privatized gains, socialized losses". In a just world every decision maker with blood on their hands would pay with their wealth for tens of thousands of lives extinguished, which means: back to working class, should they ever leave prison. But surely they'll have it all squirreled away off-shore and nothing of substance will change.
popilewiz 4y ago
This has to sink him, right? I mean, if there was ever a reason to kick a wannabe authoritarian out
optimalsolver 4y ago
This is the same kind of mentality espoused by "cut the red tape" types in the West. The kind who post images such as the 1930s construction workers having lunch on a suspended beam with a caption like "Back when we could build things". Worker fatality rates, of course, not even alluded to. If you try to eliminate bureaucracy, you very quickly find out what it was all for.
- yostrovs 4y ago
  I'm waiting to find out what all the red tape really is for. Some of it, like earthquake resilience, I understand. But licensing of barbers in some states while not in others, I'll have to wait for the inevitable disaster that will befall unlicensed barbers to teach me my lesson. For you it probably is easy because you very quickly find out what those licenses are for. Ayn Rand lives rent free in your mind.
  - brokencode 4y ago
    Your post is needlessly political, but you have a fair point. Ultimately there is a balance between too much and not enough regulation. Certain regulations are very important, such as those for public safety around earthquakes, floods, fires, etc. But we have a lot of zoning regulation in this country that seemingly just exists to support special interests at the detriment of society as a whole. For instance, there is a significant amount of single family zoning in California that has prevented developers from building sufficient housing density where it is needed. Recently, some areas have lost their zoning privileges due to state law because they’ve refused to take any steps to solve the problem. I believe we need to significantly reduce zoning restrictions around the country to allow for more housing to be built with the aim of bringing down housing costs.
    - yostrovs 4y ago
      I agree with you and just would like to note that me mentioning Ayn Rand came about because the original comment that I was replying to initially had her mentioned. The author must have edited it to remove her.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Whoops! We may be unable to serve your election now, please hold: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/02/turkey-fears-grow-erdogan-postponing-elections-earthquake-toll-passes-30000 https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/02/turkey-fears-gr... It's unclear whether Erdogan has the legal power to delay the elections (scheduled for May), but his political allies have publicly advanced the idea.
radres 4y ago
Article is wrong when it is saying "emerged videos fueled outrage". It didn't. It won't. Here is what is going to happen. The upcoming elections in May is going to be postponed, at least a year or however long it is necessary to make people forget what happened. If I know his voters, they'll forget it in couple of months.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Until just after the next manufactured crisis that makes Erdogan look good and strong. It is such a pity because until this new phase Turkey was doing fantastic, enough to have Turkish nationals abroad and even second generation immigrants to Western countries beginning to migrate back to Turkey because they felt that it was their future once again. Since then large numbers of people have moved out once more because of the downward spiral the country has entered and this earthquake will only accelerate the drop, it is unlikely that Erdogan will end up removed because of it. And the people that moved out were exactly the people that Turkey needs the most.
- deleted 4y ago
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perihelions 4y ago
For added context, one of his government's first responses to the earthquake was to immediately mass-arrest hundreds of structural engineers. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/12/turkey-arrests-building-contractors-earthquake-death-toll-mounts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/12/turkey-arrests... - "Turkey’s vice-president, Fuat Oktay, said on Sunday that authorities had identified 131 people suspected of being responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened, and that detention orders had been issued for 113 of them." "“We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and caused deaths and injuries,” Oktay said. Special investigation units have been set up in the 10 provinces affected."
- redtriumph 4y ago
  Text book blame game now after realizing the cost. Often, the builders and contractors have dealings with politicians to get favors and perks. I am not accusing or calling that there is corruption between politicians and builders. But one of the criterion that Turkey is measuring for its inclusion in EU is corruption. It would be interesting to see impact of this on corruption scores in EU progress report. It has already been noted that there is no progress in fight against corruption [^a] a. https://web.archive.org/web/20220121110007/https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/system/files/2021-10/Turkey%202021%20report.PDF https://web.archive.org/web/20220121110007/https://ec.europa... b. https://web.archive.org/web/20201218132551/https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/pdf/key_documents/2016/20161109_report_turkey.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20201218132551/https://ec.europa...
redtriumph 4y ago
Sadly this has been a norm in countries/places with a mix of corruption and ineffective enforcement of laws. Back in my home town in India, tons of my relatives have built huge multi-storey buildings all the while ignoring the city code about spacing between adjacent buildings or distance of structure from main road. That's not to say that everyone ends up kicking the rules, but the number of people who have done that in past 20+years makes me wonder how is it that easy to not follow municipal building code. Hope, that it doesn't take a natural calamity for people to realize the importance of code and the local civil enforcement starts using its power!
- valarauko 4y ago
  This wonton disregard for the rules in India comes up every so often, it gets plenty of airtime on the 24 hours news channels when an avoidable tragedy occurs, and nothing changes. For example, a few years ago there was a fire in a makeshift factory in Delhi, operating illegally inside a tenement building. The surrounding buildings had built unauthorized wings, blocking access for fire trucks & dozens of people died. Nothing changed.
- 2devnull 4y ago
  It may be more common but it’s not exclusive to places outside the USA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collaps... Costs are costs. If you need lower cost anything (healthcare, pharmaceuticals, housing) you will likely incur additional risks.
jmyeet 4y ago
Almost 24 years ago, a massive earthquake struck Turkey (the so-called Izmit Earthquake). Tens of thousands of people died. In the wake of that disaster, an earthquake tax [1] was instituted. Billions of dollars were raised. Where did that money go? How was it spent? Well... nobody really knows [2]. The smart money is it disappeared in corruption. Contracts awarded and paid but never built, kickbacks to key political leaders, that sort of thing. Interestingly, this same type of corruption has crippled Russia's military [2]. Contracts awarded for the next generation of tanks. Those are never built. The money is returned to generals who steal it and then a contract is awarded for a replacement. The existing contract may be cancelled when the new one is developed and those funds just disappear too. Unfortunately you see this pattern play out a lot: a democratically elected leader corrupts the system they were elected in to ultimately become an autocrat. The scary part is a good chunk of the population in any of these countries cheer this on since they've been successfully manipulated and propagandized into this would-be dictator being the only solution to some imagined cultural moral failure. In Nazi Germany there was cultural bolshevism [3]. Interestingly, this particular one is resurgent today rebranded as cultural Marxism [4]. What we are witnessing in Turkey, Russia and even the United States (as well as many other placces) is the rise of fascism. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_tax_(Turkey) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_tax_(Turkey) [2]: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155647266/turkey-earthquake-erdogan-government-response-criticism https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155647266/turkey-earthquake-... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art#Cultural_Bolshevism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art#Cultural_Bolshe... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th...
- deleted 4y ago
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mkl95 4y ago
> "We solved the problem of 144,156 citizens of Maras with zoning amnesty," Erdogan said, using his term for the construction amnesties handed out to allow contractors to ignore the safety codes that had been put on the books specifically to make apartment blocks, houses and office buildings more resistant to earthquakes. At my previous job I warned the CEO that we were risking the product's stability with the latest features. I told him we would be in trouble with our users within weeks. I switched jobs shortly after that, and a few weeks later I learnt the company had lost ~35% MRR overnight. Their biggest customer had fired them due to the app's poor service level. Stupid leaders are everywhere and they can have absolute power at some organizations, including governments. They are well advised, they just don't give a fuck.
- justnotworthit 4y ago
  Or through survivorship bias, they're the lucky one who won every risky bet until that point.
zabzonk 4y ago
this is reason why so many people are against admitting turkey to the eu. it's not racism, or fear of immigration, its hatred of corruption and fascism in the turkish state. having spent a huge chunk of my life in a greek/turkish neighbourhood in north london i like turks, shop in turkish shops, eat turkish food, etc. but they really need to kick out this horrible bastard.
csours 4y ago
In June 2021, a condo building called Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida collapsed, killing 98 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse This prompted a huge flurry of investigations and inspections. (See "Building Integrity" on YouTube for a particularly good series) Turkey has suffered thousands of Champlain collapses. I can't imagine that there will be enough resources to investigate each collapse at even 1% of the intensity that has been devoted to Champlain Towers.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  And even if they did have those resources quite a few of the possible outcomes of such investigations would be considered unprintable if you wanted to stay in your job (or even in Turkey).
- alkonaut 4y ago
  There were quite a lot of videos from survivors of collapsed buildings now with testimony about blatant violations. For example stores opening in bottom floors who simply remove columned and load bearing walls to open up the store space. When the violations aren’t merely corner cutting or negligence during construction but that clear, then testimony, photos (from said store) should be pretty easy to find. The investigation obviously still needs to find who was responsible, but at least it’s just a legal investigation and not a technical one.

274 points by Zigurd 4y ago

At first I thought the headline was click-bait, but it's actually accurate. The videos really, truly show Erdogan repeatedly boasting about giving "amnesty" to private builders to ignore regulatory codes in order to "solve" Turkey's housing shortage. It appears that a majority of the thousands of buildings that crumbled into dust when the earthquake struck were constructed under such "amnesty." In hindsight, Erdogan looks like a naive moron, and the private builders who put innocent lives at risk to maximize short-term profit look like movie villains.

mc32 4y ago
It's so like people who do wrong. He's accusing the developers of flouting construction code and jailing them when he encouraged them to take the shortcuts all along!
- jacquesm 4y ago
  The scapegoating was so predictable that quite a few apartment block owners, contractors, architects and other people involved in the building industry fled abroad. And a whole bunch of them that moved just a little bit slower were nabbed at the airport whilst waiting for their flights.
tromp 4y ago
The tragedy is that this horrible practice of building for failure did not meet with public outcry when publicly admitted years ago but had to await actual failure...
- ploum 4y ago
  We had a similar story in Belgium. Politicians decided that houses could now safely be built in flood zones because "we had no major flood for the last 20-40 years". (and it could safely be assumed that at least some of them benefited privately from those decisions, it’s a common practice here) Guess what happened in 2021 ? yep… The most deadly flood in human memory. Guess what happened to those politicians ? Yep, absolutely nothing.
2devnull 4y ago
[flagged]
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Not just in hindsight. Buildings not built to code crumbling when an inevitable earthquake hits was foreseeable.
theshrike79 4y ago
But the man does own the courts and pretty much all politicians, so there's very little anyone can do. He threw his biggest political opponent in jail so he can win the next presidential "election" in peace.
- grugagag 4y ago
  It starts with one nail in the coffin, then another one, then another one.. Eventually most autocrats ends up badly after some time.
- at-fates-hands 4y ago
  He also blamed all the developers and immediately arrested them: Vice President Fuat Oktay said overnight that 131 suspects had so far been identified as responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened in the 10 provinces affected by the tremors early last Monday. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-steps-up-collapsed-buildings-investigation-orders-113-arrested-2023-02-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-steps-up-co...
  - TylerE 4y ago
    Well, I mean, they should be, too. Nothing forcing them to request such an "amnesty" except greed.
    - munk-a 4y ago
      These folks definitely deserve a pretty big penalty levied on them - but if the policy of giving out these sorts of amnesties isn't reformed we can expect a repeat. I'm concerned that the government is going to force all of the blame onto these contractors for political reasons and won't end up enacting any reforms of inspectors since it'd make Erdogan look bad.
    - gameman144 4y ago
      It seems pretty ridiculous for a government official to say "I am giving you permission to bypass these rules" and then arrest them for breaking those rules. Sure, requesting an exemption may be an act of greed, but the role of responsible government is to say "No, those rules are there for a reason". If developers legally bypassed regulations due to the government saying it's okay, the buck should absolutely stop with the government, and the question should be why they allowed those exemptions.
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quantified 4y ago
Just call them "indulgences" to align with history. With foresight everyone knew it would end badly. The safety measures whose variances were being indulged were the result of bitter experience. How much concrete (and GHG emission and coal inputs) were just wasted?
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > How much concrete (and GHG emission and coal inputs) were just wasted? I would put the lives lost first on that list. The tragedy is incredible.
roenxi 4y ago
It certainly sounds stupid, but in the spirit of completeness this is forming a conclusion with insufficient evidence and part of a typical emotional response that makes people do stupid things. We don't live forever, and sustained mass homelessness is arguably pretty bad too. If Turkey can't afford indestructible houses then maybe Erdogan made the right decision and it just happens that all the outcomes sucked. Although given the evidence in the article it does look like a catastrophe (20k dead for 350k housed sounds is a bad deal, albeit we can't possibly know that all 20k were from zoning issues) the news right after a disaster is usually highly misleading.
- seydor 4y ago
  What are you talking about? This isnt the first earthquake in the region, it s a story that goes back thousands of years of written history. Most countries in the area have changed their codes and now build houses that are very resistant to earthquakes. Earthquakes happen all the time, (arguably not as big) but rarely you hear about such damages. Turkey has a problem of bad building, like what happened with the Izmir earthquake in 2020
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Which presumably is no secret and which would have been considered in the decision making - indeed, everyone involved would have known that the next earthquake would have worse consequences. The issue I have - and it is in your comment as well as elsewhere - is you are using an argument that this situation was predictable. That isn't enough. You have to argue that the costs in this disaster outweighed the benefits of a lighter building code. My guess would be that they probably do, the death count is quite high. But that is no excuse for sloppy, knee-jerk thinking. We need less of that.
    - seydor 4y ago
      It's not knee jerk thinking. Even turkey has nominally strict building codes because of all the previous earthquakes. And it s not like it s running out of land to build. Nobody in this region thinks it could possibly be a good thing to skirt building codes. Earthquakes are frequent enough to be constant reminders of it
jefftk 4y ago
> it's actually accurate Are we sure? I would normally interpret "zoning amnesty" to mean "you wouldn't normally be allowed to build that thing there, but we'll allow it", and letting people avoid earthquake codes would be more like "building code amnesty". Did these certificates actually exempt projects from the building code?
- sonefromturkey 4y ago
  It works as "you built your building, we will allow you to keep it and legalize it"
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    The Italian equivalent is 'sanification', so yes.
- dandelany 4y ago
  The phrase "zoning amnesty"/"zoning peace" is like the "death tax" or the "green new deal" - a way of rebranding a controversial political issue to make it seem incontroversial and obvious. It's called this precisely so that uninformed citizens will make the same mistake and think "Yes, why should people be homeless over some trivial political bullshit like zoning laws?" From everything I've been able to find, it was building code amnesty, in effect. The proliferation of these laws in Turkey, dating back all the way to the 1940s, created a culture where builders could basically build what they want, without the necessary permits/code enforcement, confident in the knowledge that they would fall under the next decree of amnesty and never be required to fix it. "...more than 50 percent of the buildings in Turkey were constructed in violation of the current building code... Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) Ankara branch chair Selim Tulumtaş warned .. that the legislation put the lives of 2.7 million people across the country at risk since they live in shoddily constructed buildings." https://www.turkishminute.com/2023/02/13/turkey-construction-amnesty-under-spotlight-dead-earthquake/ https://www.turkishminute.com/2023/02/13/turkey-construction...
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slim 4y ago
A Turkish friend told me at the time those buildings were being built that Erdogan was buying votes and loyalty from those buildings inhabitants. So he is absolutely not innocent

canadiantim 4y ago

TIL: In 2018, even the Urbanization Ministry acknowledged that half of the structures in Turkey did not adhere to the relevant regulations.

netsharc 4y ago

What will probably happen next/Free playbook for Recep: claim the videos are deepfaked and fake news, and ban their publication, and jail anyone who claims he ever said those things. The goal is to minimize the spread of this information before the election.

baybal2 4y ago
Erdo, and AK ratings have tanked so hard already that there is no chance he will be winning anywhere fairly at all. Now, the question is whether will he go for electoral fraud, or leave his post knowing for sure that a jail term awaits him.
- neoberg 4y ago
  Knowing the people there; I'd be surprised if he didn't come even stronger after all this.
  - cwilkes 4y ago
    “Only I know how to fix such a corrupt system as I’ve seen it from the inside”
    - kyriakos 4y ago
      Or put blame on external actors as usual.
- rodgerd 4y ago
  My understanding is that a significant amount of Edrogan's support actually comes from foreign-resident voters - either expat Turks or people with dual citizenship. There are e.g. British and Germans with Turkish citizenship who don't have to deal with the fallout of voting for him, but love his rhetoric and persona.
- kyriakos 4y ago
  Jail could be the least of his worries if he loses upcoming elections. If he's about to lose his best option is to flee the country.

baybal2 4y ago

The actual video https://youtu.be/MxVuuxJalb4 https://youtu.be/MxVuuxJalb4

shmatt 4y ago

Unfortunately even the most modern nations have politicians pushing to "cut red tape" Im truly shocked the private sector in Turkey didn't solve this problem themselves, and needed government oversight to make sure they're doing their job correctly

im3w1l 4y ago
I think that's a healthy thing. Regulation has advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes it goes too far and sometimes it doesn't go far enough. So it makes sense to have people advocating both more and less of it.
- altcognito 4y ago
  This is a really sensible comment, and furthermore, what solutions work in South Dakota won't make sense in New York. Having a robust, flexible system of regulation that is debated without becoming an identity is healthy.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  A good example of this is Nuclear and the East-Palestine / Ohio derailments from a few days ago. Nuclear is prohibitively expensive due to regulations, while more dangerous situations such as trains carrying hazardous chemicals had regulations cut [1] not too long ago. [1] https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/trump-administration-loosening-regulations-for-rail-transportation-of-flammable-natural-gas https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/trump-administration-loos...
TulliusCicero 4y ago
The red tape people are asking to be cut isn't basic safety regulations, generally speaking. Japan is the reference Turkey was supposed to follow for dealing with earthquakes, and Japan is known for both building being fairly easy ("as of right"), and also for being relatively strict for earthquake resistance. You can have both.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago

RGamma 4y ago

Perfect example of "privatized gains, socialized losses". In a just world every decision maker with blood on their hands would pay with their wealth for tens of thousands of lives extinguished, which means: back to working class, should they ever leave prison. But surely they'll have it all squirreled away off-shore and nothing of substance will change.

popilewiz 4y ago

This has to sink him, right? I mean, if there was ever a reason to kick a wannabe authoritarian out

optimalsolver 4y ago

This is the same kind of mentality espoused by "cut the red tape" types in the West. The kind who post images such as the 1930s construction workers having lunch on a suspended beam with a caption like "Back when we could build things". Worker fatality rates, of course, not even alluded to. If you try to eliminate bureaucracy, you very quickly find out what it was all for.

yostrovs 4y ago
I'm waiting to find out what all the red tape really is for. Some of it, like earthquake resilience, I understand. But licensing of barbers in some states while not in others, I'll have to wait for the inevitable disaster that will befall unlicensed barbers to teach me my lesson. For you it probably is easy because you very quickly find out what those licenses are for. Ayn Rand lives rent free in your mind.
- brokencode 4y ago
  Your post is needlessly political, but you have a fair point. Ultimately there is a balance between too much and not enough regulation. Certain regulations are very important, such as those for public safety around earthquakes, floods, fires, etc. But we have a lot of zoning regulation in this country that seemingly just exists to support special interests at the detriment of society as a whole. For instance, there is a significant amount of single family zoning in California that has prevented developers from building sufficient housing density where it is needed. Recently, some areas have lost their zoning privileges due to state law because they’ve refused to take any steps to solve the problem. I believe we need to significantly reduce zoning restrictions around the country to allow for more housing to be built with the aim of bringing down housing costs.
  - yostrovs 4y ago
    I agree with you and just would like to note that me mentioning Ayn Rand came about because the original comment that I was replying to initially had her mentioned. The author must have edited it to remove her.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Whoops! We may be unable to serve your election now, please hold: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/02/turkey-fears-grow-erdogan-postponing-elections-earthquake-toll-passes-30000 https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/02/turkey-fears-gr... It's unclear whether Erdogan has the legal power to delay the elections (scheduled for May), but his political allies have publicly advanced the idea.

radres 4y ago

Article is wrong when it is saying "emerged videos fueled outrage". It didn't. It won't. Here is what is going to happen. The upcoming elections in May is going to be postponed, at least a year or however long it is necessary to make people forget what happened. If I know his voters, they'll forget it in couple of months.

jacquesm 4y ago
Until just after the next manufactured crisis that makes Erdogan look good and strong. It is such a pity because until this new phase Turkey was doing fantastic, enough to have Turkish nationals abroad and even second generation immigrants to Western countries beginning to migrate back to Turkey because they felt that it was their future once again. Since then large numbers of people have moved out once more because of the downward spiral the country has entered and this earthquake will only accelerate the drop, it is unlikely that Erdogan will end up removed because of it. And the people that moved out were exactly the people that Turkey needs the most.
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perihelions 4y ago

For added context, one of his government's first responses to the earthquake was to immediately mass-arrest hundreds of structural engineers. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/12/turkey-arrests-building-contractors-earthquake-death-toll-mounts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/12/turkey-arrests... - "Turkey’s vice-president, Fuat Oktay, said on Sunday that authorities had identified 131 people suspected of being responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened, and that detention orders had been issued for 113 of them." "“We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and caused deaths and injuries,” Oktay said. Special investigation units have been set up in the 10 provinces affected."

redtriumph 4y ago
Text book blame game now after realizing the cost. Often, the builders and contractors have dealings with politicians to get favors and perks. I am not accusing or calling that there is corruption between politicians and builders. But one of the criterion that Turkey is measuring for its inclusion in EU is corruption. It would be interesting to see impact of this on corruption scores in EU progress report. It has already been noted that there is no progress in fight against corruption [^a] a. https://web.archive.org/web/20220121110007/https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/system/files/2021-10/Turkey%202021%20report.PDF https://web.archive.org/web/20220121110007/https://ec.europa... b. https://web.archive.org/web/20201218132551/https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/pdf/key_documents/2016/20161109_report_turkey.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20201218132551/https://ec.europa...

redtriumph 4y ago

Sadly this has been a norm in countries/places with a mix of corruption and ineffective enforcement of laws. Back in my home town in India, tons of my relatives have built huge multi-storey buildings all the while ignoring the city code about spacing between adjacent buildings or distance of structure from main road. That's not to say that everyone ends up kicking the rules, but the number of people who have done that in past 20+years makes me wonder how is it that easy to not follow municipal building code. Hope, that it doesn't take a natural calamity for people to realize the importance of code and the local civil enforcement starts using its power!

valarauko 4y ago
This wonton disregard for the rules in India comes up every so often, it gets plenty of airtime on the 24 hours news channels when an avoidable tragedy occurs, and nothing changes. For example, a few years ago there was a fire in a makeshift factory in Delhi, operating illegally inside a tenement building. The surrounding buildings had built unauthorized wings, blocking access for fire trucks & dozens of people died. Nothing changed.
2devnull 4y ago
It may be more common but it’s not exclusive to places outside the USA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collaps... Costs are costs. If you need lower cost anything (healthcare, pharmaceuticals, housing) you will likely incur additional risks.

jmyeet 4y ago

Almost 24 years ago, a massive earthquake struck Turkey (the so-called Izmit Earthquake). Tens of thousands of people died. In the wake of that disaster, an earthquake tax [1] was instituted. Billions of dollars were raised. Where did that money go? How was it spent? Well... nobody really knows [2]. The smart money is it disappeared in corruption. Contracts awarded and paid but never built, kickbacks to key political leaders, that sort of thing. Interestingly, this same type of corruption has crippled Russia's military [2]. Contracts awarded for the next generation of tanks. Those are never built. The money is returned to generals who steal it and then a contract is awarded for a replacement. The existing contract may be cancelled when the new one is developed and those funds just disappear too. Unfortunately you see this pattern play out a lot: a democratically elected leader corrupts the system they were elected in to ultimately become an autocrat. The scary part is a good chunk of the population in any of these countries cheer this on since they've been successfully manipulated and propagandized into this would-be dictator being the only solution to some imagined cultural moral failure. In Nazi Germany there was cultural bolshevism [3]. Interestingly, this particular one is resurgent today rebranded as cultural Marxism [4]. What we are witnessing in Turkey, Russia and even the United States (as well as many other placces) is the rise of fascism. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_tax_(Turkey) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_tax_(Turkey) [2]: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155647266/turkey-earthquake-erdogan-government-response-criticism https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155647266/turkey-earthquake-... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art#Cultural_Bolshevism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art#Cultural_Bolshe... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th...

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mkl95 4y ago

> "We solved the problem of 144,156 citizens of Maras with zoning amnesty," Erdogan said, using his term for the construction amnesties handed out to allow contractors to ignore the safety codes that had been put on the books specifically to make apartment blocks, houses and office buildings more resistant to earthquakes. At my previous job I warned the CEO that we were risking the product's stability with the latest features. I told him we would be in trouble with our users within weeks. I switched jobs shortly after that, and a few weeks later I learnt the company had lost ~35% MRR overnight. Their biggest customer had fired them due to the app's poor service level. Stupid leaders are everywhere and they can have absolute power at some organizations, including governments. They are well advised, they just don't give a fuck.

justnotworthit 4y ago
Or through survivorship bias, they're the lucky one who won every risky bet until that point.

zabzonk 4y ago

this is reason why so many people are against admitting turkey to the eu. it's not racism, or fear of immigration, its hatred of corruption and fascism in the turkish state. having spent a huge chunk of my life in a greek/turkish neighbourhood in north london i like turks, shop in turkish shops, eat turkish food, etc. but they really need to kick out this horrible bastard.

csours 4y ago

In June 2021, a condo building called Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida collapsed, killing 98 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse This prompted a huge flurry of investigations and inspections. (See "Building Integrity" on YouTube for a particularly good series) Turkey has suffered thousands of Champlain collapses. I can't imagine that there will be enough resources to investigate each collapse at even 1% of the intensity that has been devoted to Champlain Towers.

jacquesm 4y ago
And even if they did have those resources quite a few of the possible outcomes of such investigations would be considered unprintable if you wanted to stay in your job (or even in Turkey).
alkonaut 4y ago
There were quite a lot of videos from survivors of collapsed buildings now with testimony about blatant violations. For example stores opening in bottom floors who simply remove columned and load bearing walls to open up the store space. When the violations aren’t merely corner cutting or negligence during construction but that clear, then testimony, photos (from said store) should be pretty easy to find. The investigation obviously still needs to find who was responsible, but at least it’s just a legal investigation and not a technical one.