Turkey’s Minister of Justice has announced that investigations have been launched against more than 600 people in connection with the collapse of buildings in the devastating earthquake in Turkey earlier this month.
Minister Bekir Bostock said on Saturday that 184 of the 612 suspects were awaiting trial. Among those arrested were construction contractors and building owners or managers, he said in televised remarks from the coordination center in Diyarbakır, southeastern Turkey.
“Finding evidence in buildings remains the cornerstone of criminal investigations,” Bozdag added.
After the 7.8 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes on February 6, which caused more than 44,000 deaths in southern Turkey and more than 5,500 in northern Syria, many Turks questioned the structural integrity of many of the 173,000 collapsed buildings. or severely damaged.
The opposition accused the administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of failing to enforce building regulations.
The mayor was arrested
Local media reported Saturday that the mayor of a town near the epicenter was arrested as part of an investigation into the collapsed buildings.
Okes Cavak, a member of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) who chairs the Nurdagi district in Gaziantep province, allegedly failed to ensure that construction inspections were carried out.
AFAD, Turkey’s disaster management agency, reported 9,470 aftershocks in the quake-affected area.
“This will continue for a long time…we hope these vibrations will last at least two years,” AFAD general manager Orhan Tatar told a news conference in Ankara.
It said the magnitude 5.3 quake, which struck the town of Bor, some 245 kilometers west of the epicenter of the February 6 quake, was considered “independent” of previous quakes.
