The lax enforcement of building codes in Turkey was common knowledge before the recent earthquakes

For years, Turkey has provoked fate by not enforcing modern building regulations while on the other hand allowing, and in some cases encouraging, a construction boom in troubled areas, experts said and this evening the Associated Press (AP) reports.

The failure to enforce regulations long warned against by geological and engineering experts is under renewed scrutiny after two catastrophic earthquakes flattened thousands of buildings and killed more than 23.000 people in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday.

"This disaster was caused by shoddy construction, not an earthquake," said David Alexander, professor of emergency planning at University College London.

It is common knowledge that many of the buildings that were wiped off the face of the earth by two powerful earthquakes were made of weak materials and using poor methods, and often did not meet the standards set by the government, said the president of the Chamber of Architects of Turkey, Eyup Mehcu.

According to him, this includes many old buildings, but also those that have been built more recently, almost two decades since Turkey brought its building laws into line with modern standards.

"The buildings in that area were generally weak, not strong, despite the real danger of an earthquake," Mehcu added.

The problem is widely neglected, experts say, citing the fact that dealing with it would be expensive and unpopular, and would put a brake on one of the key engines of economic development in the country.

Undoubtedly, the two consecutive earthquakes that destroyed or damaged at least 12.000 buildings were extremely powerful and shallow epicenters, with the first occurring at dawn making it difficult for many people to react and escape when their buildings began to shake. .

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has acknowledged "shortcomings" in the country's response to the disaster, but experts say there is a mountain of evidence, including rubble, that points to the brutal reality of what caused so many earthquake deaths.

Although Turkey has adequate building safety regulations on paper, it rarely enforces them in practice, which explains why thousands of buildings simply collapsed when the violent shaking began.

In a country that is criss-crossed by geological faults between tectonic plates, people constantly fear where the next earthquake might strike, especially in Istanbul, a city of more than 15 million people.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag has promised to investigate the cause of so much destruction, but several experts have warned that any serious inquiry into the causes of lax enforcement of building codes would have to include an uncompromising look into the politics of President Erdogan as well as the regional and local officials who oversaw and even encouraged it. the construction boom that affected Turkey's economic growth.

Just before Turkey's last presidential and parliamentary elections in 2018, the government launched a comprehensive program guaranteeing amnesty to companies and individuals responsible for certain building code violations. By paying the fine, violators could avoid bringing their buildings under strict legal conditions. Similar amnesties were announced by previous governments before the elections.

During the amnesty, the government's building code enforcement agency admitted that more than half of the buildings in all of Turkey - some 13 million of them - did not comply with current standards.