by Ece Toksabay and Daren Butler
ANTAKYA/ISTANBUL, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkish authorities have so far arrested 184 people suspected of responsibility for the collapse of buildings in the February 6 earthquake and the investigation is widening, the Turkish Minister of Health said on Saturday. Justice.
The balance sheet of the earthquake, and the very violent aftershocks that followed, is now 44,128 dead for Turkey alone. It rises to more than 50,000 if neighboring Syria is included.
More than 160,000 buildings housing 520,000 apartments were destroyed or heavily damaged in Turkey by the disaster, the worst in the country’s recent history.
Many Turks have expressed anger over corruption in the construction or property development sector and poor planning practices.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power for 20 years but criticized for the authorities’ response to the earthquake and facing the prospect of a difficult re-election in June, has promised that those responsible will be held to account in court.
At a press conference on Saturday in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said more than 600 people had been targeted by investigations related to the collapsed buildings.
Among those arrested and detained are 79 construction subcontractors, 74 people legally responsible for buildings, 13 building owners and 18 people who made changes to buildings, he said.
Member of the ruling party (AKP, Justice and Development Party), the mayor of Nurdagi district in Gaziantep province, one of the ten affected by the earthquakes, is among those arrested, the channel reported. public TRT Haber and other Turkish media.
Nearly three weeks after the disaster, no definitive assessment is yet available and the authorities do not know how many bodies could still be under the rubble.
A firefighter involved in clearing operations in the severely affected city of Antakya, said human remains were discovered daily.
Nearly two million people in the affected regions, homeless, are accommodated in villages of tents or containers and other infrastructure, according to the disaster management authority.
(French version Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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