[Antakya/Istanbul (Reuters)]- Antakya, a city in southern Turkey. Under the rubble of a fallen flat, Kebsel could hear the voices of his two sons. However, after searching around for two days, he was unable to find an emergency response manager who would give a rescue order.
“Everybody says they’re not in charge,” Kebsel said Thursday. “I kept bending my head to ask you to send me just one crane to lift the concrete.
A Reuters visit to the same site a day later said no survivors had since been rescued.
Many said more lives could have been saved if the emergency response had been quicker and better organized after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey and Syria on Saturday was asked .
Reuters interviewed dozens of residents and emergency responders. There were voices of embarrassment that people were forced to fend for themselves in the middle of winter due to shortages of water, food, medical supplies, body bags and cranes.
Onur Naci Karahanci, a doctor working in Adiyaman, southern Turkey, told a meeting of the doctors’ group that “the general problem here is the organization, especially in the medical sector,” and that the first two days after the earthquake in particular They said they didn’t have enough body bags.
In Antakya and Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter, Reuters reporters saw few rescue workers during the first 48 hours.
Some survivors, unable to contact the Agency for Disaster and Emergency Preparedness (AFAD), begged local teams to rescue their relatives under the rubble, Reuters reported, but such requests were rejected by AFAD. I was asked to go through the coordination team.
Since 2009, AFAD has been tasked with coordinating the disaster response and relief efforts of its 7,300 staff and over 600,000 volunteers, national and international organisations.
AFAD explained in its regular briefing on the 11th that around 218,000 people, including AFAD, the police, the police, soldiers and volunteers, had been sent to the affected areas. But the officers did not respond to criticism from residents that they were slow to respond.
Two experts interviewed by Reuters said the centralization of AFAD’s emergency response by the Erdogan government was one reason for the delay. Examples include the inability of the military to mobilize forces at will without direct instructions from civilian authorities, excluding external emergency response organizations.
Hetav Rojan, a security adviser to the Danish authorities and others, said that under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey’s politics and governance, “has become more centralized”. “But centralization is harmful in disaster management. A top-down approach prevents an effective response. We should leave it to local police forces to act according to local needs. This is not the case in Turkey,” he said.
Erdogan came to power more than 20 years ago, in part because he criticized the government’s response to the 1999 earthquake. This year’s presidential election, said to be a close race, is underway, and he has dismissed criticism of the government’s response government to the earthquake.
Some opposition politicians have increased criticism of AFAD’s lack of preparedness.
AFAD published a report on its response to the magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck north-west Turkey last November, acknowledging that it would lack vehicles and resources in the event of a larger disaster. Reuters looked at the report.
The report also noted that it was difficult to find the right personnel to respond, and that local coordination was poor. “The disaster response group was not sufficiently prepared, the AFAD centers were chosen incorrectly, and coordination and cooperation between organizations was insufficient,” he said.
By 2023, AFAD’s budget will be cut by two-thirds. At the same time, the budgets of organizations that AFAD coordinates, such as the police and the Coast Guard, have increased.
Following a failed coup attempt in 2016, Erdogan increased his real power over economic, foreign and defense policy.
AFAD was under the prime minister’s office until 2018, but after the change to a centralized presidential system led by Erdogan, it came under the jurisdiction of the interior ministry under the president.
Nassou Malki, founder of search and rescue organization AKUT, said last week’s earthquake was delayed because the military had to seek instructions from civilian authorities.
In 2010, Erdogan’s government repealed a provision that allowed the military to operate inside the country without civilian permission under certain conditions, in an attempt to weaken his powerful army.
“In such a big situation, massive cooperation is essential. AFAD seems to be responsible this time, but they were clearly not ready,” said Malki.
Defense Minister Akar said in a statement that troops had set up an emergency center in southern Turkey within an hour of the earthquake, and that more than 25,000 people had responded by Wednesday.
One nurse told Reuters she was ready to rush to the affected areas on Saturday when the earthquake struck, but arrived 40 hours later because she had to wait for instructions from AFAD.
When they arrived in Hatay province, where the damage was most severe, the field hospital had no water, electricity or portable toilets, and was too far from the city of Antakya for many people to reach.
For the past 25 years, nurses have rushed to the scene whenever major disasters have occurred, but the response to this earthquake is shocking. “I don’t know why AFAD failed so miserably,” he said.
(Reporter Jonathan Spicer)
