The biggest cause of deaths, however, may have been shoddy building standards, corruption and bad policymaking. All are part of Turkey’s economic model, which is powered by construction and rent-seeking. The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, bears much of the blame, analysts say. But so do its predecessors, as well as municipalities (some run by the opposition), developers and planners. “This is a perfect crime,” says Murat Guvenc, an urban planner and academic. “Everybody has their finger in the pie.”
This means the difference between life and death. In Osmaniye, as elsewhere, most of the collapsed buildings date back to before the 1999 earthquake. But scores of new ones, ostensibly constructed according to new standards, have also come down or suffered irreparable damage. Hundreds of people may be trapped under a luxury housing estate completed only a decade ago in Antakya
In nearby Erzin county, however,
not a single building collapsed. The local mayor and his predecessor told local media that they did not allow any illegal construction. Both used the same phrase: “My conscience is clear.”
Construction amnesties, which allow owners to register unlicensed properties or ones that violate building codes in exchange for a fine, have made a bad situation much worse. Mr Erdogan’s government passed several such amnesties, the latest in 2018, ahead of general elections. The opposition backed the move, because it was popular with voters. The government reaped the political dividends, while millions of property owners ended up paying into state coffers and assuming the risk.
A year after the 2018 amnesty, Mr Erdogan appeared in Kahramanmaras, proudly announcing that the programme “had solved the problems” of 144,000 of the city’s residents. The agency in charge of the programme revealed that more than half of the country’s housing stock did not comply with building standards.