İTÜ publishes preliminary report about quakes
ISTANBUL
The five main reasons of the grave destruction caused by the Feb. 6 quakes are listed as age of the buildings, insufficient bearing capacity of the ground, failure to comply with the regulations, poor quality of the materials and mismatch in floors of adjacent buildings, a report prepared by many scholars from the Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ) reveals.
Rector İsmail Koyuncu stated that the detailed analysis report on the earthquakes will be published in the coming period, noting that the land traces and surface fracture maps of these earthquakes contain quite new information regarding earthquakes in the country.
In the report, it was recalled that many reinforced concrete buildings became debris in 10 provinces on the Eastern Anatolian Fault Line during severe earthquakes.
Reminding that there is a series of parameters behind this massive destruction in the provinces, the report listed five main reasons.
It was stated that the fact that the buildings were quite old was a decisive factor in the destructiveness of the earthquakes, in which many fault lines were broken at the same time.
The low bearing capacity of the foundations on which the buildings sit was also among the reasons.
As one of the most well-known reasons, the quality of the materials, which is vital for the survival of buildings, such as the quality of concrete, was insufficient.
Failure to take into account the regulations during the construction of the buildings and the incompatibility between the floors of the adjacent buildings were also listed as other reasons.
“Regulations legalizing unsafe building stock that have not received engineering services such as zoning amnesty should be terminated,” İTÜ scientists warned.
Preliminary calculations regarding earthquake waste were also indicated in the report.
Accordingly, it is estimated that the total amount of earthquake waste can range from 50 million to 110 million tons.
