Turkey's Plans for Rebuilding after a Catastrophic Earthquake

It’s now over a month since two earthquakes in rapid succession devastated parts of Turkey and neighbouring Syria, leaving behind a trail of destruction that is still difficult to truly comprehend. On a human level, the death toll is estimated at around 51,000 people, of which around 45,000 were in Turkey. Meanwhile, millions more have been left uprooted across a 200-mile-long path of destruction.

 

The earthquakes – a magnitude 7.8 quake 23 miles west-northwest of Gaziantep in Turkey on 6 February, followed by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake later in the day 59 miles north of the first – have also destroyed hundreds of thousands of buildings. Recent estimates have put the number of buildings either destroyed or severely damaged at more than 200,000.

 

Now that the rescue efforts are over, the need to rebuild housing and infrastructure for all the people who have been displaced is pressing. And it is likely to cost tens of billions of dollars.

 

Facing a general election this year, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government was swift to launch an investigation into building contractors after tens of thousands of buildings collapsed. So far, nearly 200 people have been arrested as a result of those investigations. Meanwhile, at the start of this month, Erdoğan pledged, “We will build better buildings in the place of those which collapsed. We will win hearts and we will unroll a new future in front of our people.”

 

To achieve this, the government has promised to build a total of 488,000 homes across the region affected by the earthquake within a year, in a highly ambitious programme. Taking charge of the effort is the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, led by environment and urbanisation minister Murat Kurum. Meanwhile, Turkey’s housing authority TOKİ is the mandated agency for the reconstruction effort in the affected cities.

 

But the scale of the challenge is huge given the extensive damage, and experts warn that careful planning will be required. Official assessments of buildings in the earthquake-hit region have suggested that up to 232,000 buildings – around 30% of the existing building stock – will have to be demolished, while many more will need retrofitting and reinforcements. The World Bank estimates the cost of direct physical damage in Turkey at US$34.2 billion, with the final recovery and construction cost potentially twice as large.

 

As Turkey looks to rebuild, many are calling for an approach that integrates zoning, building life cycle management and sustainable urban development. This will require involvement from all construction disciplines – city planners, landscape architects, interior architects and engineers – and a focus on careful planning. Building densities, land use and transport connections are all likely to change as a result of the reconstruction, and authorities will need to consider safe power storage options in case of future disasters. But if Turkey can demonstrate that it can handle the process of post-disaster recovery and development planning, apply risk-based land use planning and zoning management, introduce stricter codes for quality controls during construction processes, and develop emergency action plans, it could attract more funding to support the rebuilding effort.