Saturday, February 11, 2023

Lawsuit Seeks Medical Testing After Toxic Train Derailment

By The Associated Press
February 11, 2023US
A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains, on Feb. 6, 2023. (Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio—Residents who filed a federal lawsuit in the fiery derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals along the Ohio-Pennsylvania line are seeking to force Norfolk Southern to set up health monitoring for residents in both states.

The lawsuit filed Thursday by two Pennsylvania residents calls for the rail operator to pay for medical screenings and related care for anyone living within a 30-mile radius of the derailment to determine who was affected by toxic substances released after the derailment. The lawsuit also is seeking undetermined damages.

rain Derailment Ohio
Portions of a Norfolk and Southern freight train that derailed Friday night in East Palestine, Ohio, are still on fire at mid-day, on Feb. 4, 2023. (Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)

About 50 cars, including 10 carrying hazardous materials, derailed Feb. 3 in the Ohio village of East Palestine. No one was injured in the derailment that investigators said was caused by a broken axle.

Three days after the accident, authorities decided to release and burn vinyl chloride inside five tanker cars, sending hydrogen chloride and the toxic gas phosgene into the air.

Environmental regulators have been monitoring the air and water in surrounding communities and have said that so far the air quality remains safe and drinking water supplies have not been affected.

But some residents have complained about headaches and feeling sick since the derailment.

Norfolk Southern declined to comment on the lawsuit.

train derail cleanup
The cleanup of portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed on Feb. 3, in East Palestine, Ohio, continues on Feb. 9, 2023. (Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)


Animals reported sickened as more details come out on toxic Norfolk Southern tanker derailment in eastern Ohio

Following the all clear for residents of East Palestine, Ohio to return home given by government and company officials in the wake of the catastrophic derailment last week of a train carrying deadly vinyl chloride, there are more reports of health concerns by residents.

Questions have been raised over the broader health impact of the decision of authorities to carry out a “controlled release” Monday of thousands of pounds of the carcinogen vinyl chloride, which were intentionally dumped on the ground and set on fire from five tanker cars. Huge plumes of toxic black smoke could be seen rising into the atmosphere afterwards.

The tanker cars were part of a 50-car derailment last Friday on the Norfolk Southern rail line passing through the small community on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, north of Pittsburgh. Officials had evacuated residents within a one- to two-mile radius of the crash site.

Members of Ohio National Guard 52nd Civil Support Team prepare to enter an incident area to assess remaining hazards with a lightweight inflatable decontamination system (LIDS) in East Palestine, Ohio, Tuesday, February 7, 2023. [AP Photo/Ohio National Guard via AP]

The village of East Palestine, population 4,700, 40 miles south of Youngstown and near the Pennsylvania state line, once had a tire and ceramics industry, but has faced deindustrialization and population decline in recent decades. The town has seen many derailments, including an Amtrak crash in 1973 that killed one and injured 19.

A certified foxkeeper just outside the evacuation zone has reported one of his foxes died after the burn. “Out of nowhere, he just started coughing really hard, just shut down, and he had liquid diarrhea and just went very fast,” Taylor Holzer told WKBN television based in Youngstown. He said all of his foxes have been sick and lethargic since the train derailment February 3. “This is not a fox acts. He is very weak, limp. His eyes are very watery and weepy,” Holzer said, adding that some of the foxes are pacing in their pens, a sign they are unwell.

“People’s cats are getting sick and dying, and people’s other birds that they have in their house that they weren’t being able to evacuate either. It’s just, it’s not safe for them.”

Another resident near the crash told of finding hundreds of dead fish in a stream near their house.

“I’m scared to go back home, ” resident Brittany Dailey told the Associated Press Monday. “I’m eventually going to have to go back, but it makes me want to sell my house and move at this point.”

One resident tweeted, “Some of my friends … returned to their homes a day ago and are now leaving—checking back into their hotel rooms. They are experiencing sickness, lung, breathing, sinusitis problems. Disgusting!”

News video clips showed cleanup workers at the crash site not wearing respirators or other protective equipment, suggesting Norfolk Southern was ignoring the safety of even its own employees in its drive to restore its operations.

At a press briefing Wednesday, Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine had claimed there was no longer any danger to residents. Norfolk Southern resumed trains on the rail line even before residents had returned home.

The press conference was marred by the arrest of NationNews reporter Evan Lambert, who was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by police following a shoving incident apparently initiated by Ohio National Guard chief General John Harris Jr. The blatant attack on freedom of the press has only heightened residents’ suspicions that authorities are engaged in a cover-up of the dangers posed by the “controlled release.”

Already, several class action suits have been filed by local residents over the crash and its aftermath. Local officials complained that Norfolk Southern cleanup crews moving equipment at the crash scene could spread hazardous material on nearby roads. East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway said he had been promised street sweepers to rectify the situation and expressed anger that train service was so quickly resumed on the rail line.

“Anybody who was in incident command [Wednesday] night can tell that I was not very happy with that,” Conaway said of the resumption of rail operations, noting there was not much he could do “unless I go tie myself to the railroad tracks. …”

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is investigating the derailment, said that it believes problems with an axle overheating on one of the rail cars caused the accident. At a press conference February 4, NTSB member Michael Graham said that train crew had gotten an alert shortly before the crash and had begun applying the brakes.

On Friday, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported that the train had traveled at least 20 miles before the crash with a malfunctioning axle, according to images taken with a video camera by a business located in Salem, Ohio. According to the report, “the southbound freight train passed by Butech Bliss, an industrial equipment manufacturer in Salem. One car, a few dozen behind the first locomotive, glowed brightly on the bottom as it passed.”

“A minute later and a mile down the track, a camera at a meat processing plant called Fresh Mark captured the same fiery axle,” the Post Gazette reported.

Across the tracks from Fresh Mark was a device called a hotbox detector that scans passing trains, and if it detects an axle overheating is supposed to alert train crews. The detectors are spaced 10 to 20 miles apart. The next detector was outside East Palestine. Crews apparently did not get a warning until they were less than one mile out of town. The 20 miles between Salem and East Palestine are mostly rural.

According to a retired train engineer cited by AP, if an alert sounds, the train is supposed to stop and the axle is inspected. A 140-car train like the one that derailed would probably take one mile to stop, he estimated.

An NTSB official said that part of the investigation would be to check the hotbox detectors to make sure they were working.

Federal Railroad Administration data showed that hazardous materials were released in 11 railroad accidents in 2022. There were 20 such incidents in both 2018 and 2020.

The danger of catastrophic accidents is increasing as all the major railroads have slashed thousands of jobs and reduced the size of train crews to cut costs. Railroads are running longer and longer trains with smaller crews. According to an interview with Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, published by the Associated Press, inspectors used to get two minutes to inspect a rail car but now get 30 to 45 seconds. Signalmen who maintain crossing guards and safety signals along the tracks have larger territories to cover.

SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH

The Dark Side of Sports Stadiums


ROBERT REICH
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Billionaires have found one more way to funnel our tax dollars into their bank accounts: sports stadiums. And if we don’t play ball, they’ll take our favorite teams away.

Ever notice how there never seems to be enough money to build public infrastructure like mass transit lines and better schools? And yet, when a multi-billion-dollar sports team demands a new stadium, our local governments are happy to oblige.

A good example of this billionaire boondoggle is the host of the 2023 Super Bowl: State Farm Stadium.

That’s where the Arizona Cardinals have played since 2006. It was finally built after billionaire team owner Michael Bidwill and his family spent years hinting that they would move the Cards out of Arizona if the team didn’t get a new stadium. Their blitz eventually worked, with Arizona taxpayers and the city of Glendale paying over two thirds of the $455 million construction tab.

And State Farm Stadium is not unique. It’s part of a well established playbook.

Here’s how stadiums stick the public with the bill.

Step 1: Billionaire buys a sports team.

Just about every NFL franchise owner has a net worth of over a billion dollars — except for the Green Bay Packers, who are publicly owned by half a million cheeseheads.

The same goes for many franchise owners in other sports. Their fortunes don’t just help them buy teams, but also give them clout — which they cash-in when they want to get a great deal on new digs for their team.

Step 2: Billionaire pressures local government.

Since 1990, franchises in major North American sports leagues have intercepted upwards of $30 billion worth of taxpayer funds from state and local governments to build stadiums.  

And the funding itself is just the beginning of these sweetheart deals.

Sports teams often get big property tax breaks and reimbursements on operating expenses, like utilities and security on game days. Most deals also let the owners keep the revenue from naming rights, luxury box seats, and concessions — like the Atlanta Braves’ $150 hamburger.

Even worse, these deals often put taxpayers on the hook for stadium maintenance and repairs.

We taxpayers are essentially paying for the homes of our favorite sports teams, but we don’t really own those homes, we don’t get to rent them out, and we still have to buy expensive tickets to visit them.

Whenever these billionaire owners try to sell us on a shiny new stadium, they claim it will spur economic growth from which we’ll all benefit.  But numerous studies have shown that this is false.

As a University of Chicago economist aptly put it, “If you want to inject money into the local economy, it would be better to drop it from a helicopter than invest it in a new ballpark.”

But what makes sports teams special is they are one of the few realms of collective identity we have left.

Billionaires prey on the love that millions of fans have for their favorite teams.

This brings us to the final step in the playbook: Threaten to move the team.

Obscenely rich owners threaten to — or actually do — rip teams out of their communities if they don’t get the subsidies they demand.

Just look at the Seattle Supersonics. Starbucks’ founder Howard Schultz owned the NBA franchise but failed to secure public funding to build a new stadium. So the coffee magnate sold the team to another wealthy businessman who moved it to Oklahoma.

The most egregious part of how the system currently works is that every dollar we spend building stadiums is a dollar we aren’t using for hospitals or housing or schools.

We are underfunding public necessities in order to funnel money to billionaires for something they could feasibly afford.

So, instead of spending billions on extravagant stadiums, we should be investing taxpayer money in things that improve the lives of everyone — not just the bottom lines of profitable sports teams and their owners.  

Because when it comes to stadium deals, the only winners are billionaires.

(Source: youtube.com)

IMF delays crucial bailout for cash-strapped Pakistan

Pakistan’s economy has been in dire straits due to dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

Scroll Staff
2 hours ago
Government officials and IMF team holding bailout talks. 
| Pakistan Press Information Department/AFP

The International Monetary Fund on Friday said that “considerable progress” was made during talks with cash-strapped Pakistan but did not announce any financial aid for the country.

Islamabad is seeking $1.1 billion (INR 9,074.44 crore) from the international lender – part of its $6 billion (INR 49,496.97 crore) bailout package – to avert economic collapse. The $1.1 billion payment has been stalled since December.

After an International Monetary Fund team left Pakistan on Friday after 10 days of talks with the government, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said the payment was delayed because of “routine procedures”, Reuters reported.

In a statement, Pakistan International Monetary Fund Mission Chief Nathan Porter said that the negotiations will continue virtually in the coming days.

Khaqan Najeeb, a former finance ministry adviser, told Reuters that the delay in releasing the much-needed loan is untenable.

Pakistan’s economy has been in dire straits due to dwindling foreign exchange reserves. Analysts fear the reserves would last less than 20 days and warned that any delay in the International Monetary Fund bailout could have damaging consequences.

In January, the year-on-year inflation had risen to a 48-year high, leaving Pakistanis struggling to afford basic food items.

The country’s economic crisis was exacerbated by last year’s devastating floods that displaced nearly 3.3 crore people of its 23 crore population and destroyed crops over large tracts of land.

Last week, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had said that the economic situation was unimaginable. “The conditions we will have to agree to with the IMF are beyond imagination,” he added. “But we will have to agree with the conditions.”

Also read


A crore denotes ten million and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group ...

Five million may be homeless in Syria after quake: UN

UN official in Syria says the ‘crisis within a crisis’ is also making the delivery of aid more difficult.

People take shelter inside a mosque, following an earthquake, in Jableh, Syria, on February 9, 2023. [Yamam al Shaar/Reuters]

Published On 11 Feb 2023

More than five million Syrians may be homeless after Monday’s devastating earthquakes that struck the country and its neighbour Turkey, according to a United Nations official.

“As many as 5.3 million people in Syria may have been left homeless by the earthquake,” Sivanka Dhanapala, the Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday. “That is a huge number and comes to a population already suffering mass displacement.”

“For Syria, this is a crisis within a crisis,” he added, “We’ve had economic shocks, COVID and are now in the depths of winter, with blizzards raging in the affected areas.”

Survivors of the magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 quakes have flocked to camps set up for people displaced by nearly 12 years of war from other parts of Syria. Many lost their homes or are too scared to return to damaged buildings.

Some 24,000 people have already died across Turkey and Syria because of the quake – more than 3,300 of those in Syria.

Dhanapala said the UNHCR has been “rushing aid” to the badly affected parts of Syria, but “it’s been very, very difficult”.

“There are 6.8 million people already internally displaced in the country. And this was before the earthquake.”

Meanwhile, a second UN aid convoy of 14 trucks has crossed into rebel-held areas of Syria – after an initial six vehicles went in on Thursday.



The Syrian government has said it will allow aid deliveries to rebel-held areas outside of its control, in cooperation with the UN and humanitarian organisations.

“The full scale of the devastation in Syria is only beginning to come to light,” said Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from the UN in New York.

Although more aid convoys are getting through the one authorised border point into the hardest-hit areas, our correspondent said critics argue it is too little, too late.

“The majority of [people made homeless from the quake are] in areas the Syrian government doesn’t control, where people had already been uprooted by years of war,” she said.

On Friday the UN also released another $25m in emergency funding for Syria, bringing the total so far to $50m, Saloomey said, “but an assessment team is now on the ground and the needs are expected to well exceed that”.

The conflict in Syria started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful protests, and escalated to pull in foreign powers and armed groups.

Nearly half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced about half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes, with many seeking refuge in Turkey.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES


Aid trickles in as death toll from Turkey-Syria quakes surpasses 24,000

Issued on: 11/02/2023 - 

International aid was trickling into parts of Turkey and Syria on Saturday where rescuers toiled to pull children from rubble in areas devastated by a massive earthquake that has killed over 24,000 people.

A winter freeze in the affected areas has hurt rescue efforts and compounded the suffering of millions of people, many in desperate need of aid.

At least 870,000 people urgently needed food in the two countries after the quake, which has left up to 5.3 million people homeless in Syria alone, the UN warned.

Aftershocks following Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor have added to the death toll and further upended the lives of survivors.

The United Nations World Food Programme appealed for $77 million to provide food rations to at least 590,000 newly displaced people in Turkey and 284,000 in Syria.

Of those, 545,000 were internally displaced people and 45,000 were refugees, it said.
Humanitarian access

The UN rights office on Friday urged all actors in the affected area — where Kurdish militants and Syrian rebels operate — to allow humanitarian access.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, announced a temporary halt in fighting to ease recovery work.

In rebel-held northwestern Syria, about four million people rely on humanitarian relief but there have been no aid deliveries from government-controlled areas in three weeks.

(with AFP)



Turkey's lax policing of building codes known before quake



1 / 18
Destroyed buildings are seen from above in Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023. The Turkish government has for years tempted fate by not enforcing modern construction codes at the same time it was allowing — and in some cases, encouraging — a real estate boom in earthquake-prone areas, according to experts in geology and engineering who repeatedly issued warnings.
(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

ZEYNEP BILGINSOY and SUZAN FRASER
Fri, February 10, 2023 

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey has for years tempted fate by not enforcing modern construction codes while allowing — and in some cases, encouraging — a real estate boom in earthquake-prone areas, experts say.

The lax enforcement, which experts in geology and engineering have long warned about, is gaining renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of this week's devastating earthquakes, which flattened thousands of buildings and killed more than 22,700 people across Turkey and Syria.

“This is a disaster caused by shoddy construction, not by an earthquake,” said David Alexander, a professor of emergency planning at University College London.

It is common knowledge that many buildings in the areas pummeled by this week’s two massive earthquakes were built with inferior materials and methods, and often did not comply with government standards, said Eyup Muhcu, president of the Chamber of Architects of Turkey.

He said that includes many old buildings, but also apartments erected in recent years — nearly two decades after the country brought its building codes up to modern standards. “The building stock in the area was weak and not sturdy, despite the reality of earthquakes,” Muhcu said.

The problem was largely ignored, experts said, because addressing it would be expensive, unpopular and restrain a key engine of the country's economic growth.

To be sure, the back-to-back earthquakes that demolished or damaged at least 12,000 buildings were extremely powerful — their force magnified by the fact that they occurred at shallow depths. The first 7.8 magnitude quake occurred at 4:17 a.m., making it even more difficult for people to escape their buildings as the earth shook violently. And President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has acknowledged “shortcomings” in the country's response.

But experts said there is a mountain of evidence — and rubble — pointing to a harsh reality about what made the quakes so deadly: Even though Turkey has, on paper, construction codes that meet current earthquake-engineering standards, they are too rarely enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings crumbled.

In a country crisscrossed by geological fault lines, people are on edge about when and where the next earthquake might hit — particularly in Istanbul, a city of more than 15 million that is vulnerable to quakes.

Since the disaster, Erdogan's minister of justice said it will investigate the destroyed buildings. “Those who have been negligent, at fault and responsible for the destruction following the earthquake will answer to justice,” Bekir Bozdag said Thursday.

But several experts said any serious investigation into the root of weak enforcement of building codes must include a hard look at the policies of Erdogan, as well as regional and local officials, who oversaw — and promoted — a construction boom that helped drive economic growth.






















Shortly before Turkey's last presidential and parliamentary election in 2018, the government unveiled a sweeping program to grant amnesty to companies and individuals responsible for certain violations of the country's building codes. By paying a fine, violators could avoid having to bring their buildings up to code. Such amnesties have been used by previous governments ahead of elections as well.

As part of that amnesty program, the government agency responsible for enforcing building codes acknowledged that more than half of all buildings in Turkey — accounting for some 13 million apartments— were not in compliance with current standards.

The types of violations cited in that report by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization were wide-ranging, including homes built without permits, buildings that added extra floors or expanded balconies without authorization, and the existence of so-called squatter homes inhabited by low-income families.

The report did not specify how many buildings were in violation of codes related to earthquake-proofing or basic structural integrity, but the reality was clear.

“Construction amnesty doesn’t mean the building is sturdy,” the current head of the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, Murat Kurum, said in 2019.

In 2021, the Chamber of Geological Engineers of Turkey published a series of reports raising red flags about existing buildings and new construction taking place in areas leveled by this week's quakes, including Kahramanmaras, Hatay and Osmaniye. The Chamber urged the government to conduct studies to ensure that buildings were up to code and built on safe locations.

A year earlier, the Chamber issued a report that directly called out policies of “slum amnesty, construction amnesty” as dangerous and warned that “indifference to disaster safety culture" would lead to preventable deaths.

Since 1999, when two powerful earthquakes hit northwest Turkey, near Istanbul — the stronger one killing some 18,000 people — building codes have been tightened and a process of urban renewal has been underway.

But the upgrades aren't happening fast enough, especially in poorer cities.

Builders commonly use lower quality materials, hire fewer professionals to oversee projects and don't adhere to various regulations as a way of keeping costs down, according to Muhcu, president of the country's Chamber of Architects.

He said the Turkish government’s so-called “construction peace” introduced before the 2018 general elections as a way to secure votes has, in effect, legalized unsafe buildings.

“We are paying for it with thousands of deaths, the destruction of thousands of buildings, economic losses,” Muhcu said.

Even new apartment buildings advertised as safe were ravaged by the quake.

In Hatay province, where casualties were highest and an airport runway and two public hospitals were destroyed, survivor Bestami Coskuner said he saw many new buildings, even “flashy” new ones had collapsed.

In Antakya, a historic city in Hatay, a 12-story building with 250 units that was completed in 2012 or 2013 collapsed, leaving an untold number dead, or still trapped alive. The Ronesans Rezidans was considered one of the “luxury” buildings in the area and was advertised as “a life project that is high quality” on Facebook with a pool, gym, beauty center and security.

On Friday, a contractor who oversaw the construction of that building was detained at Istanbul Airport before boarding a flight out of the country, Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency reported.

Another destroyed building in Antakya is the Guclu Bahce, which began construction in 2017 and opened with much fanfare in 2019 in a ceremony attended by Hatay’s mayor and other local officials, according to fact-checking website Dogrulukpayi.

In Malatya, the brand-new Asur apartments — billed as earthquake-proof in advertisements — sustained damage in the first quake, but residents escaped unharmed. Some residents who returned to the building to collect belongings managed a second lucky escape when the second strong temblor hit, causing the building to slide toward one side, according to video shown on TikTok and verified by fact-checking website Teyit.

The devastation across Turkey comes at a sensitive time for President Erdogan, who faces tough parliamentary and presidential elections in May amid an economic downturn and high inflation.

Erdogan regularly touts the country's construction boom over the past two decades, including new airports, roads, bridges and hospitals, as proof of his success during more than two decades in power.

On his tour of the devastation Wednesday and Thursday, Erdogan pledged to rebuild destroyed homes within the year.

“We know how to do this business," he said. “We are a government that has proved itself on these issues. We will.”

___

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Robert Badendieck in Istanbul and Danica Kirka in London contributed.

‘Why did we give all these warnings?’: Turkey earthquake region was flagged as danger zone at least 24 years ago

24 years after the deadly Izmit earthquake, Turkey sees 6,000 buildings collapse, thousands dead -- and no accountability in sight

Tuvana Sahinturk
Wed, February 8, 2023 

On Monday morning, Turkey woke up to a disastrous tragedy. At 4:17 a.m. local time, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit near Gaziantep, a city in Southern Turkey, with 120 recorded aftershocks following in the next 12 hours. The earthquake was named the deadliest in a decade, with casualties in Turkey and Syria surpassing the 10,000 mark.

This is not the first big earthquake Turkey has faced, yet it is one of the deadliest. Growing up in Turkey, I was always warned and taught about how dangerous earthquakes can be. From classes to television, there was always a voice telling us how to place our furniture, prepare earthquake emergency kits, and countless drills in case tragedy ever struck.

A man stands inside a destroyed building as others react, in Iskenderun town, southern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. A powerful earthquake hit southeast Turkey and Syria early Monday, toppling hundreds of buildings and killing and injuring thousands of people. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

The 1999 Izmit earthquake, still deeply mourned, was the biggest earthquake in Turkey I knew about growing up, causing almost 20,000 deaths, and collapsing over 100,000 buildings. My mother was pregnant with me at the time, and she was still so terrified when I became old enough to understand what an earthquake is. The danger and horror of earthquakes are deeply understood by the Turkish people, there has been more than enough suffering to take earthquake preparation seriously. So how did over 6,000 buildings collapse once again, more than 20 years later?

The morning of the earthquake, geoscientist, Naci Görür, went on live television, unable to hide his despair.

“I was woken up at 4 a.m. in the morning, I cried for an hour, and I am still crying. It’s the place we have been warning about for years. Not a single local authority called to ask what they can do. Why did we give all these warnings?” he said.

Görür’s perspective is one that suggests that the right preparation and inspection could have at least decreased the scope of the disaster that struck the morning of Feb. 6th.



In an interview with The Guardian, Dr. Henry Bang, a geologist and disaster management expert explained what could have caused so many buildings to collapse in different ways.

RELATED: How you can help Turkey, Syria victims

“Those whose walls have crumbled to the ground are probably very old buildings that were built with relatively weaker building materials. The [multi] story buildings that have collapsed like a pack of cards were probably not built with earthquake-resistant design features,” said Bang.

After the 1999 earthquake, many pointed their fingers at the outdated building codes that were still in place. So, Turkey introduced modern building codes hoping to be better prepared next time.

The problem is there are many ways to cheat, like replacing reinforcing rods with styrofoam or using outdated procedures. Whether the inspections that are supposed to take place inside these buildings were conducted regularly still remains a question, and one thing stands true: the contractors that chose to cheat the system for extra cash now carry the responsibility for the thousands of lives that were lost in the earthquake.


Drone footage shows devastation from Turkey quake

STORY: Drone footage captured by Reuters gave a bird's-eye view of Hatay's landscape littered with mounds of rubble from collapsed buildings, while others stood precariously on an angle with long cracks and fissures slashing across their facades.Rescue teams worked early on Tuesday to reach people trapped in the rubble of buildings in southern Turkey as the death toll in the country from Monday's (February 6) earthquake continued to rise. The magnitude 7.8 quake hit Turkey and northwest Syria, toppling entire apartment blocks, wrecking hospitals, and leaving thousands more people injured or homeless.Nearly 8,000 people have been rescued from 4,758 buildings destroyed in the tremors a day earlier, Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said in its latest statement.

While measurements and preparation play a big part in earthquake management, Turkey still sits in a highly seismically active area, making the natural disaster almost non-avoidable. In an interview with Scientific American, Ross Stein, CEO of the catastrophe modelling company Temblor, explains that Turkey is squeezed by a giant tectonic vise, meaning that the country is being forced outward to the west, spilling into the Mediterranean and ultimately being pushed beneath Crete in a subduction zone similar to the one seen off of Japan.

In earthquake-affected cities, search and rescue efforts are still ongoing. Donating and spreading secure assembly locations and helpful information can go a long way toward helping the survivors.

Photos: Powerful Turkey, Syria earthquake leaves collapsed buildings, thousands dead

Abhya Adlakha
·Editor, Yahoo News Canada
Mon, February 6, 2023 




Earthquakes jolt Turkiye's provinces

People and emergency teams search for people in a destroyed building in Adana, Turkey, Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. A powerful quake has knocked down multiple buildings in southeast Turkey and Syria and many casualties are feared. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

More than 2,300 people have died after a devastating, historic 7.8 magnitude earthquake ripped through Turkey and Syria, leaving destruction and debris and trapping hundreds of residents under rubble.

The quake, one of the strongest to hit the region in more than a 100 years, struck 23 km east of Nurdagi, in Turkey's Gaziantep province, the US Geological Survey said.

Authorities feared the death toll would rise further as rescuers searched through tangles of metal and concrete for survivors in a region beset by more than a decade of Syria’s civil war and a refugee crisis.

Warning: Images in this gallery are disturbing and depict death and destruction