Earthquakes and modern buildings in Turkey
The Turkish government has taken many necessary and important measures to counter the risk of earthquakes and tremors in modern buildings, through:
1- Amending the engineering designs of buildings after the 1999 earthquake, so that the actual values for earthquake resistance were raised considerably and effectively, taking Turkey's seismic map into account.
2- Setting criteria for the risks that threaten buildings, the most important being: identifying which buildings were put up before 1999 and which after it, whether the building was constructed under a proper permit, the grade of concrete used, checking that the structural elements of the building are free of cracks, making sure there is no rust in the reinforcement steel, measuring the level of damp in basements and many other criteria
3- Establishing the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, AFAD, in 1999, which manages risks and disasters before, during and after they occur, and which also oversees the work of civil society organisations involved in disaster response, such as the Turkish Red Crescent.
4- Enacting a new law on protection from natural disasters that takes account of most of the fine details which make buildings more resistant during earthquakes or disasters. The law requires studies of how well building foundations withstand tremors and shocks, and requires doors and windows to be suitable and designed so as to reduce the risk to the occupants. It also requires compliance with the standards that stop walls cracking and coming apart.
5- Adopting earthquake insurance for buildings. The Turkish government is working hard to have every structure insured against earthquakes, by confirming that insurance is in place when sales and lettings take place, and by not opening electricity, natural gas and water subscriptions until the property is insured against earthquakes and disasters.
6- Implementing an urban transformation plan covering 7 million buildings, with the government and its affiliated companies renewing old buildings; three hundred thousand housing units are renewed each year in cooperation with the private sector.
Turkey is among the countries doing the most to face natural disasters, earthquakes above all. Since 1999 and that humanitarian catastrophe, the work has gone on without pause to build a modern, advanced Turkey that stands strong in the face of natural disasters.
How earthquake-resistant buildings are designed
An earthquake-resistant building is designed on a system that supports it by joining the walls to the ceilings in a fixed, rigid square, which strengthens the building's defence against the lateral effects of an earthquake.
To keep the building safe, its height is taken into account, so that it does not rise above 50 metres. Where the height goes beyond that, the design of earthquake-resistant buildings turns to expansion and settlement isolators and to seismic joints in the upper floors.
The loads and dead weights the floors will carry are also calculated with great precision, with the job of carrying the ceilings assigned to concrete columns, which gives the building greater resistance to earthquakes.