Head on the pillow, Yasin Diçer cannot sleep. Every night since his return to Istanbul, it’s the same story: should you sleep with your back against the wall, or on the floor? “The ceiling will collapse on the bed. On the ground, I might be protected. »
This student is returning from a month in Antakya as a volunteer for Afad, the Turkish national disaster management agency. The corpses gray with dust, the six-storey buildings reduced to a heap of debris two meters high, no more, all this runs through his head. So he imagines the “earthquake of the century”, expected in Istanbul by scientists from one moment to another, and wonders how it will react.
Istanbul is not ready
However, Yasin Diçer’s first floor apartment is in Beykoz, a rather reputedly safe area, on the way to the Black Sea. His friends in Bagcilar, in the west of the country, chastise him about his torments: they live in one of the most exposed neighborhoods, those bordering the Sea of Marmara. In Istanbul, this fear has long been a subject of endless discussion, sometimes swept away by a fatalistic remark or references to fate.
The images broadcast by television channels in early February this time made the threat palpable. This has resulted in shortages of whistles, one of the elements along with water, lamp and oxygen – and the earthquake survival bag – copies of which are snapped up in specialist camping equipment stores. . Downloads of the Depreme Yenilme application, which is supposed to estimate the risk of a building in a few boxes (age of the building, district, etc.), have increased 15 times this month.
Because Istanbul is not ready. Despite the shock of the 1999 earthquake in Izmit, less than a hundred kilometers away, too few buildings are up to standard. The municipality has suggested that tenants and owners call on its teams to screen buildings built before 2000. Result: more than 140,000 requests are pending, and the list is growing. According to Özlem Tut, the head of the seismic risk department, of the 29,000 buildings already tested, half are at risk of collapse. In a scenario where the tremors would rise between 7.2 and 7.8 in magnitude, the seismologist Celal Sengör speaks of at least 100,000 deaths.
Rents are skyrocketing
If this awareness is the majority, most people in Istanbul will simply have no choice but to stay at home. Including if there are cracks in the wall or if the foundation is crumbling. Because rents are exploding, multiplied by two, three, or even more in other major cities, in a context of generalized inflation. The winners in the race for “safe” housing and neighborhoods will be well-to-do Turks or foreigners, Europeans, Russians and Arabs, who have taken over the construction of the megalopolis in recent years.
Even the collection of wire bicycles that Ibrahim Tunçer makes with his own hands is no longer enough to cheer him up. This retired looking defeated failed to convince his neighbors to have the building tested. “I could have done it without asking their opinion. But I didn’t want to take the responsibility of putting others on the street., he explains. Because if the test report reveals that a building is at risk, it must be evacuated.
Reluctantly, Ibrahim Tunçer put his apartment in Yeldegirmeni, this gentrified district on the Asian side, up for sale: 2 million Turkish liras (€100,000), a bargain given market prices. But Ibrahim Tunçer knows that this sum will not be enough for him to find accommodation in the surrounding area, which is now overpriced. This Friday, he plans to return one last time to Dino, the café down the street, where young people dance on certain evenings to Latin rhythms. What he will miss the most.
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Aid of 7 billion euros
International donors have pledged Monday, March 20, in Brussels to bring aid, to the tune of 7 billion euros, to the populations of Turkey and Syria affected by the earthquake of February 6 – which caused more than 56,000 deaths and damage estimated at more than one hundred billion euros.
Of these 7 billion, some 950 million euros will go to the Syrians. The majority of aid pledges go to Turkey, where the toll from the earthquake was heaviest.
The European Commission has pledged to pay one billion euros aid for the reconstruction of Turkey, and 108 million euros in humanitarian aid for Syria. The European Investment Bank has announced 500 million euros in loans for Turkey.
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