Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked “forgiveness” on Monday to the inhabitants of the province of Adiyaman (southeast), one of the most affected by the devastating earthquake of February 6, for the delays in the arrival of relief. “Due to the devastating effect of the tremors and the bad weather, we were not able to work the way we wanted in Adiyaman for the first few days. I apologize for this,” the head of state said. Turkish during a visit to this province, three weeks after the earthquake which killed more than 44,000 people in Turkey and also affected neighboring Syria.
Strong criticism from survivors
The Turkish president, in power for 20 years and who wishes to remain in office during the elections scheduled for May 14, has come under strong criticism from survivors accusing the state of the slowness of relief. Four days after the disaster, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had sketched out a form of mea culpa, already to Adiyaman, without however asking for forgiveness. “The destruction affected so many buildings (…) that, unfortunately, we were unable to carry out our interventions as quickly as hoped,” he said at the time.
He also acknowledged “gaps” in the response to the earthquake, adding that it is “impossible to be prepared for such a disaster”.
Promise of 500,000 new homes
In this province and that of Hatay, also very affected, survivors expressed their anger to AFP a few days after the natural disaster. One of them, Mehmet Yildirim, had assured on February 10 that he had seen “no one”, “no state, no police, no soldiers” before “2 p.m. on the second day of the earthquake”, i.e. 34 hours after the first shock. He accused the authorities of leaving the population “on their own” in Adiyaman province.
This weekend, it was football supporters from Istanbul clubs who also shouted their discontent in the stadiums, calling for the resignation of the government. On Monday, the Turkish president promised the construction of nearly 50,000 new homes in this province of Adiyaman out of a total of 309,000 that must come out of the ground in the eleven provinces affected by the earthquake.