Earthquake damage in southeastern Turkey tops $105 billion

The property damage from the earthquakes that occurred in the southeast of Turkey in February is 2 trillion Turkish liras – more than $ 105 billion, the Turkish Ministry of Finance and Treasury reported, writes “RIA News”.

Louise Vinton, spokesperson for the United Nations Development Program in Turkey, said on March 7 that property damage to Turkey from earthquakes would be more than $100 billion. The spokesperson noted that hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed in the worst-hit province of Hatay. She called this situation “apocalyptic.”

On February 27, the World Bank (WB) estimated the damage to the Turkish economy from earthquakes at only $34.2 billion, or about 4% of the country’s GDP. The bank added that this amount could grow due to ongoing aftershocks.

On February 6, a series of earthquakes with a magnitude of up to 7.8 occurred in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria. In total, the earthquake affected 10 regions of the country, according to the latest data, the number of deaths from earthquakes in Turkey exceeded 48,000.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in mid-February that at least 41,000 buildings were damaged in the incident. Later it became known that most of the destroyed buildings were built before 1999, when the rules for building in seismic zones were not so strict.

At the end of February, the Associated Press, citing the Minister of Justice of the Republic, Bekir Bozdag, reported that investigations were underway in Turkey against 612 people who were associated with buildings that collapsed during earthquakes. Then he said that 184 people were taken into custody, and investigations are underway against contractors, owners or managers of buildings.