Building on cracked cliff deemed ‘safe’

ANTALYA

Following post-earthquake inspections in the southern province of Antalya that witnessed the deadly Feb. 6 quakes, a structure on the cliff, which even has a cave underneath, has been deemed as “safe” and does not require reinforcement, as per a report, which has sparked a nationwide debate.

Following the devastating Kahramanmaraş-centered quakes, in which more than 50,000 people lost their lives, people living in different provinces started to have their buildings checked for earthquake resistance.

The appearance of some buildings on the cliffs in Antalya’s Muratpaşa district has also caused controversy in recent days. The property owner of the structure on the cliff, which has cracks underneath and even a cave where daily tour boats bring tourists to visit, applied to a private company to examine the structure. Upon the application, the company inspected the property and took different samples.

The report prepared after the inspection of the property, behind which there are several multi-story buildings located, was submitted to the authorized institutions.

It was concluded that the building in its current state provides a “controlled damage performance level” according to DD-2 ground motion level within the scope of the latest earthquake regulations and no retrofitting is required in the structure, the report said.

Mehmet Soner Akdoğan, president of the Antalya Branch of the Chamber of Civil Engineers, had previously said that buildings on the cliffs should be urgently evaluated, a building inventory study should be carried out, their resistance to possible earthquakes should be determined and the risky ones should be evacuated immediately.

Stating that there are many dangerous structuring on the cliffs in Antalya, Akdoğan said there is slipping and cracking in some parts of the cliffs.

“We do not know the exact situation of the structures here. However, there are additional, add-on structures built later on the cliffs. These are sections that were added illegally and probably benefited from the zoning amnesty,” Akdoğan added.