Turkish Building Industry Faces Intense Scrutiny Over Shoddy Construction Standards After Deadly Earthquake

Following a powerful earthquake in Turkey that killed over 43,000 people, the country's government has begun an investigation into shoddy construction, arresting hundreds of building contractors and owners suspected of criminal negligence that contributed to deadly building collapses. Construction industry experts say that contractors responsible for flawed buildings should be punished, but caution that gross negligence throughout the system meant to make buildings safe may have contributed to thousands of deaths. Turkey has upgraded its building codes since a powerful tremor near Istanbul in 1999 killed more than 17,000 people. However, more than 7.8 million buildings constructed before the year 2000 are still highly vulnerable to earthquakes, according to a 2021 parliamentary report.

More than 100,000 buildings were damaged during the recent earthquake, including the Grand Isias Hotel in the southern city of Adiyaman, which collapsed and killed dozens of people, including two dozen student volleyball players, four teachers, and twelve parents visiting Turkey for a competition. A university engineer who examined the wreckage found indications of weak concrete and insufficient steel reinforcements, concluding that shoddy construction had left the building vulnerable, even to smaller quakes.

The Turkish government has investigated 564 people suspected of connections to flawed or collapsed buildings. So far, 160 have been detained pending trial; 175 are on probation, and arrest warrants have been issued for dozens more. Many of them are contractors and builders. The government has released few specifics about who is being investigated and why, but flaws in some buildings that fell were well documented before the quake.

Professional associations are preparing lawsuits against government officials they accuse of complicity. “We will make sure it is not only the contractors who are held accountable, but also the municipalities, the ministry, the ruling party, and all other authorities who are responsible for so many lost lives,” said Eren Can, a lawyer with the Istanbul Bar Association whose parents were killed when their apartment collapsed in the quake.

Turkey is a seismically active country with a history of quakes. Hoping to broaden the scope of accountability, some inspectors lack experience, and from 2011 to 2019, when contractors were allowed to select and pay the private companies that inspected their buildings, it encouraged builders to hire low-cost inspectors who would “give them the least amount of trouble,” according to Cemal Gokce, a former president of Turkey’s Chamber of Civil Engineers, a professional organization.

The government changed the system in 2019 and began assigning inspectors, eliminating what it called “the system’s biggest problem.” Despite this change, Mr. Gokce said problems with the inspection regime let bad practices slip through. Some contractors even set up their own inspection companies, which they would then pay to effectively inspect themselves. “The political authority is liable too,” said Ali Ozgunduz, a former state prosecutor who investigated collapsed buildings after another catastrophic earthquake in Turkey in 1999.