Adana (Turkey) (EFE).- While the emergency teams continue to rescue survivors of the earthquake on Monday, which has already left some 35,000 dead, the Turkish Justice has issued more than a hundred arrest warrants for negligence in the construction of buildings collapsed.
Under those orders, Turkish security forces have arrested at least a dozen people, including builders, architects and surveyors, associated with some of the tens of thousands of buildings destroyed or badly damaged in the quakes.
These arrests are the first steps of the State to purify responsibilities at a time when criticism is growing for the low quality of housing, something that not a few attribute to corruption and scant controls.
In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office has created a specialized unit to investigate what happened.
Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay said early Sunday that authorities had so far identified 131 people suspected of being responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of fallen buildings.
“We will be closely monitoring this until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that were severely damaged causing deaths and injuries,” Oktay said.
Opposition leaders have long accused the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan of failing to enforce building regulations.
With a presidential election in May, the management of the disaster and the explanations for what happened may determine Erdogan’s fate at the polls.
Although Turkey has regulations on seismic resistance in construction, they are rarely applied, even in newer houses that should have withstood earthquakes better.
In addition, under the Erdogan government, various amnesties were applied to buildings that had failed to comply with the regulations -including seismic resistance- and their situation was legalized in exchange for a financial fine.
Madrid firefighters rescue a 50-year-old woman in Turkey
The number of fatalities from the earthquake already exceeds 35,000, having recorded more than 31,000 deaths in Turkey alone.
The new data, provided by the Turkish emergency agency, Afad, comes when even today victims are being found alive among the rubble of the thousands of buildings that collapsed in the ten provinces most affected by the earthquake.
A 40-year-old woman has been found alive after 170 hours trapped in the remains of a house in the city of Gaziantep and a man in Antakya.
This same Sunday, the Madrid Community fire team sent to Turkey also rescued a 50-year-old woman who was trapped in the rubble.
Although more than six days have passed since the quake, in the last 24 hours more than a dozen people have been saved, from a three-year-old girl to an 85-year-old woman, who had spent between 140 and 155 hours under the debris.
Almost 10,000 people have arrived from other countries to help with the rescues, including several Spanish teams of health workers, firefighters and the military.
Seventy planes and 167 helicopters are also helping to assist victims and more than 300 mobile kitchens, 33 mobile bread ovens and 83 toilet facilities have been transferred to the region so far, the agency added.
The area affected by the earthquake covers more than 100,000 square kilometers – an area larger than that of a country like Portugal – and is home to approximately 10 million people.
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