Damaged buildings evacuated in Sakarya

SAKARYA – Hürriyet Daily News

AA photo

Officials in the northwestern province of Sakarya began cutting off electricity, water, natural gas and phone services yesterday to 1,301 buildings moderately damaged in the Aug. 17, 1999, earthquake.

The Sakarya Governor’s Office and the Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality launched the initiative to identify buildings that were damaged in the 1999 quake following the deadly Van quake on Oct. 23.

Building owners who failed to obtain a license demonstrating their properties were structurally reinforced before Dec. 31, 2009, were granted a grace period to evacuate their properties. This time period was set to expire yesterday. Authorities also identified two mosques in the area which will need to be demolished.

Earlier reports had indicated that roughly 20,000 buildings constructed in accordance with older and looser regulations were at risk of collapse during an earthquake in the province’s Adapazarı, Serdivan, Erenler and Arifiye districts.

Turkish president visits Van quake survivors

The 7.6-magnitude 1999 earthquake devastated Turkey’s most industrialized region, including some suburbs of Istanbul, and killed around 20,000 people.

Compiled from Doğan news agency and Anatolia news agency stories by the Daily News staff in Istanbul.