After the earthquake in Turkey, questions about building standards are growing

The Turkish authorities are under fire because they allegedly allowed individuals and construction companies to make compromises and at the same time to raise around £ 4 billion through an existing earthquake tax.

Turkey temporarily introduced a special levy after the 1999 earthquake, which was made permanently under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who promised to issue it to reinforce the infrastructure. It has collected 88 billion lira (about £ 3.9 billion) in the past 23 years, of which 9.3 billion.

Large parts of urban areas in the southeast of Turkey were damaged by the earthquake on Monday or the ground, which raises questions about the extent to which his government and its allies have ignored individuals and construction companies who made compromises during security.

"According to the former finance minister, the most money was used for the construction of roads," Murat Sabuncu, a journalist of T24, the most popular independent news website in Turkey, claimed in a column on Tuesday.

"You see how these streets developed," he added, referring to the widespread damage to the areas of the area. "Why was this money not spent on the earthquake?"

The parliament was asked to initiate an examination of how the tax revenue was used.

The allies of Mr. Erdogan have defended the diversion of these funds in the past.

The then Minister of Economics Lütfi Elvan said in 2021 that the funds from the tax were used as part of the "treasury" and added that "they could have been used for all editions".

The earthquake of Monday, which has been described as the worst in Turkey since 1939, also revealed far -reaching violations of building regulations that worsened the damage.

A woman in Malatya shared a tweet on Monday that she posted two years ago and complained that a supermarket teared out some of the load -bearing beams of the building to install an elevator.

"It was two years ago, and unfortunately I share the debris of my house that was destroyed today with the earthquake," she said. Of the four apartment buildings you see in the video, only ours had one [store] on the ground floor. ”

The last devastating earthquake in Turkey caused the government to introduce new, stricter building regulations.

The then opposition politician Mr. Erdogan sharply criticized the government's reaction and said that it was his government that "helped these cities to get back on his feet".

But almost a quarter of a century later, critics say, seems to have changed little on site.

The government led by Erdogan has imposed several "zone amnesties", of which the youngest was referred to as "zone peace", and allowed everyone to legalize any property for a fee, which he may have built or renovated under violation of zone division and construction processes. This was adopted in 2018 - the year of the last presidential elections.

According to the industry, around 13 million buildings in Türkiye, according to the industry, have been legalized thanks to the procedure.

"Many new buildings are at risk of earthquake after unauthorized renovation work," said Professor Pelin Pinar Giritlioglu, head of the Istanbul branch of the Chamber of Turkish Engineers and Architects, compared to the Telegraph.

"The state has pardoned these buildings for money ... With the earthquake we have experienced the tragic result of this constellation."

The Telegraph asked the spokesman for presidential affairs for a comment.