Evacuation of university buildings start after earthquake

ISTANBUL

Istanbul University’s Cerrahpaşa Rectorate has announced that some of the university’s buildings, including the pediatric care unit, the dentistry faculty and the faculty of health sciences, will be evacuated until Oct. 6 due to damages incurred by the 5.8-magnitude earthquake on Sept. 26.

The dentistry faculty, currently located in the Avcılar campus, and the faculty of health sciences, currently located in the Bakırköy campus, will both move to university’s campus in the Büyükçekmece district until their “new buildings are built,” Rector Prof. Dr. Nuri Aydın said in a press meeting held on Oct. 3.

Education services at these two faculties have been suspended until Oct. 23, Aydın said. Dormitory buildings at the university’s Avcılar campus will be also evacuated, he said.

The rector said that the decision was taken after technical teams assigned by the Environment and Urbanization Ministry analyzed the relevant buildings and penned reports.

He said that the necessary procedures for the renovation of the buildings already started. “We, as the rectorate, were already in a preparation process for the earthquake. The projects that we had started previously are now starting. But the area project of the veterinary faculty was already ready. The execution projects will be prepared as soon as possible and a tender process will start,” he said.

“Time will show us whether TOKİ [Housing Development Administration of Turkey] or Presidency of Strategy and Budget [under the Turkish Presidency] will undertake the construction procedure. We have been informed that our TOKİ head, with the Environment and Urbanization Ministry, undertook an instruction to handle the issue,” he said.