UPDATE - 80% of damage assessment completed in Türkiye’s quake zone, says environment minister

ADDS MORE STATEMENTS BY ENVIRONMENT MINISTER

By Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) - Authorities have completed 80% of the damage assessment in the earthquake zone in southern Türkiye after powerful tremors struck the region Feb. 6, the country’s environment minister said Thursday.

“The rest will hopefully be completed within a few days,” Murat Kurum, told Anadolu’s Editors’ Desk in quake-hit Adiyaman province.

A total of 7,300 personnel are working to evaluate the damage caused by the twin quakes which jolted more than a dozen provinces, he said.

Kurum also said destruction or damage was reported in around 164,000 buildings and 518,000 individual units.

"We have mobilized all the facilities of our state for the 11 provinces affected by the quakes," he said.

The 7.7- and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes, centered in the Kahramanmaras province, also shook Gaziantep, Hatay, Adiyaman, Malatya, Kilis, Adana, Diyarbakir, Osmaniye, Sanliurfa, and Elazig. About 13.5 million people were affected.

Most of the destroyed buildings were built before 1999, Kurum said, adding no inspection was carried out in these buildings during the construction stage.

“Some 98% of the structures that were built before 1999 were destroyed in the earthquakes as they did not receive engineering service,” he said.

Authorities will impose a floor restriction on new residences to be built in the quake zone, he noted.

"With the support of our nation, we will carry out urban transformation in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir provinces, and we will not leave our citizens helpless," said Kurum. "Urban transformation is a matter of national security and survival.”

Kurum also showed a detailed map of the fault line affecting the areas in Adiyaman, and he said authorities “will examine ground quality for soil-related liquefaction” to understand the massive destruction in the city center.

Underlining that the Iskenderun district in Hatay was one of the places where intense destruction took place, Kurum said one of the reasons for the destruction was ground liquefaction.

"We see that the ground quality is quite low in Hatay’s central Antakya province. For instance, we see that some buildings did not collapse but tilted. This is due to liquefaction in the ground. The ground softens and the building may tilt on unstable ground," he said.

At least 43,556 people were killed by two strong earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye on Feb. 6, according to the country’s disaster management agency, AFAD.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Türkiye will begin constructing more than 200,000 homes as early as March in areas devastated by the quakes and complete the process within a year.

*Anna Cecilia Canatan contributed to the story in Ankara.