‘Quake-hit Van soon to have no tent cities’

VAN - Anatolia News Agency

Minister Beşir Atalay says some 26,500 prefabricated container homes have already reached the province, with more than 147,200 people currently living in them. DHA photo

Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay yesterday said all tent-cities would soon be abolished, to be replaced by prefabricated “container homes,” in the eastern province of Van, which saw massive devastation in wake of last year’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake.

“We are only going to leave the ‘Mevlana Houses’ in Van as a precaution, but all tent–cities will be entirely abolished thereafter,” Atalay said, adding there were already no tent–cities left in the district of Erciş, which was the epicenter of the initial quake.

Around 1,000 people are still living in 290 tents across four sites, according to Deputy Prime Minister Atalay. “None of their homes are heavily damaged. They are all in a variety of different situations, of course. Some are tenants who have settled in a tent–cities, others’ homes are only lightly damaged, but they still reside in tents” he said.

“When you take a stroll across Van, there are container–cities everywhere, but people still have tents in front of their homes because we distributed so many of them. The Turkish Red Crescent is collecting the tents at the moment,” he said, adding that they were collecting and cleaning unused tents to store them at various locations.