Istanbul

• A 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed more than 48,000 in Turkey.
• We have received 15,000 orders since the earthquake, including 8,000 from Istanbul.
• They are on high alert, always on alert.

The helmet-topped engineer drove his pointy instrument into the concrete to test whether Durmus Uygun’s building will crumble when the feared big quake finally strikes Istanbul.

“I’m pretty confident but my children aren’t convinced, so we’re having this test done,” said Uygun, who lives in one of the Turkish megalopolis’s poorer and more densely packed neighbourhoods.

“If the result is good, we will live in peace. But who knows where we will be when the earthquake hits? We may be at the supermarket or at work — that’s what scares us.”

In his fifties and wearing a black beret, Uygun is far from the only one living in fear in Istanbul.

Turkey’s cultural and economic capital is home to up to 20 million people, many still haunted by memories of the last “Big One” that struck just east of the city in 1999. More than 17,000 people died, including 1,000 in Istanbul.

The city has grown substantially since then, becoming a magnet for people attracted by its booming economy — and oblivious to the active fault line running along its southern edge.

That changed on February 6, when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed more than 48,000 in southeastern Turkey and nearly 6,000 over the border in Syria, leaving entire cities in ruins.

A state of collective psychosis has since gripped Istanbulites, who have requested more than 140,000 checks of the type being conducted on Uygun’s apartment building.

Disaster has a 47-percent chance

By the municipality’s own admission, nearly 100,000 buildings will collapse or be seriously damaged in the event of a 7.5-magnitude quake.

Fifty teams of engineers have been roaming the city since last month’s disaster, measuring the quality of concrete and the width of steel reinforcement bars.

If the risk to the building is deemed “very high”, it could be condemned to demolition and occupants forced to move out.

Some of Istanbul’s southern districts lie just 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the North Anatolian Fault, which is distinct from the equally active East Anatolian Fault on which last month’s quake struck.

Seismologists have calculated a 47-percent chance of an earthquake with a magnitude above 7.3 hitting Istanbul within 30 years.

Two blocks from Uygun’s building, hardware store owner Ali Nezir has started selling whistles to locals who fear getting trapped under tonnes of concrete.

“People are scared,” said Nezir, whose small shop is on the ground floor of a 12-storey tower.

Whistles and water bottles

Some residents say they have started storing biscuits and water bottles at the foot of their beds in case the quake comes in the middle of the night, leaving them trapped.

Uygun has prepared some emergency bags for his family containing enough to survive on while waiting for help.

Ugur Erisoglu, an Istanbul wholesaler, offers earthquake survival bags for 200 lira ($10) containing torches, blankets, medical kits and neck braces.

“We used to sell 1,000 a month,” Erisoglu said. “We have received 15,000 orders since the earthquake, including 8,000 from Istanbul.”

The sudden reminder of the threat hanging over Turkey’s main city is forcing some to seriously contemplate moving home.

“There is strong demand for northern districts of Istanbul, further from the fault line, and for individual houses,” said Mehmet Erkek, the general manager of Zingat, a real estate listings platform.

Searches have also exploded for cities such as Edirne and Kirklareli, located in a less quake-prone region 200 kilometres northwest of Istanbul.

‘Always on alert’

Nil Akat, a clinical psychologist, says she has been receiving patients “who are making very concrete plans to move out of Istanbul”.

“Many no longer feel safe at home. They are on high alert, always on alert. Out on the street, they pick out safer looking sidewalks in case a building should collapse.”

Akat said she spoke to some colleagues who told her: “Some (of our patients) can no longer think rationally.”

This fear can grip anyone, without distinction for age or social class, she said.

Cisel Aktimur, a young Istanbulite who enjoys a breathtaking view of the city from her 12th-floor apartment, had been thinking of leaving for some time.

Last month’s disaster has made moving a “priority”, she said.

“Even if nothing happens to my building, I probably wouldn’t be able to bear what I see,” she said.

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• Fear is spreading in Istanbul.
• The two devastating earthquakes in Turkey’s south killed almost 50,000 people.
• Roughly 70% of the city’s structures were constructed before regulatory revisions.

Mesut Muttaliboglu’s bedroom wall has a crack so large that he can fit a vehicle key through it.

He flips it sideways, and a massive chunk of plaster flies off the wall and crashes to the ground with a flick of his wrist.

It’s the reason he and his family are leaving the flat they’ve lived in for the past 15 years. The entire structure was condemned after failing an earthquake safety test. A tremor has a very high probability of bringing this entire block falling to the earth.

The two devastating earthquakes in Turkey‘s south that killed almost 50,000 people have given the country’s largest city a new sense of urgency. It is home to 15 million people and is located on the North Anatolian fault line, and experts estimate that it will experience its own large earthquake before 2030.

Roughly 70% of the city’s structures were constructed before regulatory revisions requiring tighter construction requirements in 1999, and are thus considered potentially dangerous. A study published just three months ago predicted that a quake in this area might kill up to 90,000 people. The race to get the city ready has begun.

Mesut has seen firsthand the destruction that a quake may create. He’s recently returned from the epicenter in Kahramanmaras, the southern city where he lost relatives. He detailed the moment he found out while we talked in his now-empty flat.

“It happened at 04:17, a relative called and we all woke up screaming.” Mesut’s face crumples into tears and he turns away to compose himself. “It’s a horrible situation. We couldn’t get [to Kahramanmaras] for three days because of snow, and when we reached the rubble it was so hard. I can’t describe it. I hope God doesn’t make anyone else experience this.”

When Mesut returned to Istanbul, the authorities had shut off power and water to his flat. “I asked for them back again just so we could move. They gave me two more days.”

“The municipality had sent us a written warning about it, but the situation wasn’t resolved due to rejections from the neighbors. We knew that our utilities were going to be shut off, and we were ready to leave here, but then the quake happened and it all became a shambles.”

Since the southern earthquakes, the Istanbul municipality has received over 100,000 fresh applications for building safety inspections. The waiting list for one increased to three months, then four, and it continues to grow.

Tenants and landlords can now apply, however some still do not due to financial concerns. The compensation for those who need to relocate from condemned structures is inadequate. There are no published statistics on how many people fail the test.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the city’s mayor, has promised extra training for rescue teams as well as the construction of temporary shelters capable of housing up to 4.5 million people in the event of an earthquake. Many people, though, believe it is still insufficient.

A stroll down a typical Istanbul street explains why. Many of the structures have specific architectural features that can cause them to collapse if put under pressure during a quake.

Dr. Kurtulus Atasever, a structural and earthquake engineer, met with me to point out a few of them. We were standing on an empty plot of land covered with boulders that had once been the foundations of a building. When a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck Istanbul in 2019, it was so extensively damaged that it had to be demolished. Many of its neighbors on the street share many of the same issues.

Good quality concrete is vital, he tells me. And the architecture is crucial. ” We have some overhangs here. In this type of building, we have some weak or soft stories. There are short columns too, they are actually all typical building problems.”

In layman’s terms, each of these weakens a building at ground level, making it unable to support the floors above in the event of an earthquake. Because of the overhang, the rest of the structure is wider than the footprint. The ground floor of a soft story is taller than the levels above it. Small columns lack length in comparison to their diameter.

These can be done safely, according to Dr. Atasever, but only if appropriate thinking and planning have gone into the design. It is especially uncommon in historic structures.

We’re standing in the shadow of Yasemin Suleymanoglu’s house, and I ask if she’s concerned about the apartment block it’s in. She holds her daughter’s hand and looks up at the face of the building. “I don’t feel safe here,” she says.

“Our building shook a lot during the 2019 earthquake, and the columns of the one across the street cracked. I’ve been feeling restless since that sound, and with this latest quake, we are really scared. We’re losing our sleep because it may hit us any time. And I think we’re at risk because our building is old.

The next step is to create a 50-kilometer (31-mile) long fiber-optic-based early warning system. Nevertheless, in such a large city, it’s difficult to tell where people would run to take cover, even if they were warned of an impending earthquake.

As images of the devastation in the south continue to flood Turkish television screens, these concerns have moved to the forefront of many Istanbul residents’ minds. And, with presidential and parliamentary elections coming up in less than two months, this is critical.

The earthquake and its aftermath have replaced Turkey’s economic problems as a top priority for voters. Many people are dissatisfied with the government’s handling of either. The aftershocks here are not only physical but also political.

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