SYRIA Earthquake in Turkey: Antioch devastated. A country united by pain and divided by politics

The death toll exceeds 24 thousand. Desperate appeals from people who have lost everything in Antakya, the first cases of looting. Small signs of hope in Iskenderun, where help is arriving and electricity is (partly) back. The quake is already turning into a battleground between Erdogan and his opponents, with a May 14 presidential election on the horizon, though now in doubt.

Milan () – The situation in Antioch remains dramatic, the tremors continue and a large part of the city has been devastated; Desperate appeals from people who have lost everything come from the area. Those who have not been able to escape elsewhere, to the house of relatives or friends, live on the street, many in their pajamas and barefoot because the aid does not arrive, the shops are destroyed and the banks are inaccessible. In the last hours the phenomenon of looting has also begun to appear. Tremors, fear and victims also emerge from the stories of the inhabitants of Iskenderun, where the survivors housed in the parish of the Cathedral of the Annunciation mourn their dead. However, small signs of hope also arrive from the city: the Spanish military ship with humanitarian aid; the statues of the Virgin and San Antonio de Padua that remained standing, without suffering damage; the restoration of electricity, which allows the use of electric burners to prepare hundreds of hot meals.

The testimonies collected by in the areas most affected by the earthquake on February 6, which has so far caused more than 24,000 deaths in Turkey and neighboring Syria, are dramatic. Yet as rescuers continue to dig through the rubble in search of survivors or to extract more bodies from ruined buildings, the Ankara-Istanbul axis has already raged a political dispute over earthquake funding, the fight for power around President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the general elections scheduled for May 14. For a few hours the latter are no longer so safe, in a country that will have to face a critical emergency situation for a long time, in addition to planning a difficult task of reconstruction.

This has been the strongest earthquake in the region since 1939 for its duration and intensity. However, many experts and citizens wonder if this large-scale tragedy could have been prevented in any way, or at least if its dimensions could have been contained, especially in terms of human lives. The accusations point directly against the Government and Erdogan himself, who are considered partly responsible for failing to provide security plans and anti-seismic modernization of the buildings. In addition, critics raise the possibility of misuse of funds for earthquake prevention, diverted into the pockets of businessmen and companies dedicated to the construction of infrastructures and large works.

In recent days, the president has admitted failures in the relief and civil protection mechanisms (AFAD), although attributing them more “to fate” than to personal responsibility because “they are part of a plan of destiny.” The quake affected 10 of the country’s 81 provinces and some areas, from small villages to centuries-old centers like Antakya, were cut off for days without receiving help.

Since the 1999 earthquake, the organization of the expert teams and the management of emergency responses has been the responsibility of the army. However, after the failed 2016 coup, the “sultan” has progressively removed some functions from the military and decapitated the hierarchy, granting himself certain powers. At the same time, he has created a corps of civilian volunteers and experts, made up of just under 20,000 people, that has proven to be no match for a disaster of enormous proportions.

Scientists have warned for years about the possibility of an earthquake, although few thought it could occur on the plate that runs through eastern Anatolia. However, this does not disqualify the strong accusations for not having built the new buildings or rehabilitated the old ones with solid anti-seismic criteria. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the opposition CHP party, attacks Erdogan head-on, accusing him of “failing to prepare the country for earthquakes” in the 20 years that he has been in power. The question revolves around the destination of the funds collected through two “solidarity taxes” that were created after the 1999 earthquake, whose destination the government has never wanted to clarify. In addition, over the years governments have granted hundreds of thousands of exemptions to buildings without adequate safety criteria, some of them in the cities and provinces devastated by the earthquake on February 6. “The exemptions – says Pelin Pinar Giritlioglu, a specialist at the University of Istanbul – have played an important role in the collapse of the buildings in the last earthquake.”

Added to this is the serious fragmentation of the country’s political landscape, which, even in the face of a devastating tragedy, has not been able to find a minimum of “unity and solidarity”, as Erdogan himself has invoked after having polarized the country for years. And of having used the Islamic religion for political and propaganda purposes, as can be seen from the controversy surrounding the former Christian basilicas of Hagia Sophia and Chora in Istanbul, transformed into mosques in recent years. Blockades of the internet and social networks, accusations against the opposition, a state of emergency with a concentration of powers, greater control of the media and information, and calls for cohesion are some of Ankara’s responses to an earthquake that has affected above all to cities where the AKP has a majority. Already before the earthquake, the economy in free fall and inflation had sown discontent in the population, discontent that in many cases was unleashed on the Syrian, Iranian, Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian refugees who were considered responsible for the crisis.

Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, who spent a year in prison for his criticism of the establishment, wrote from exile in Germany that the 1999 earthquake contributed to Erdogan’s rise. The disaster that struck earlier this week could also play a pivotal role in the elections at this juncture – provided they are normally held on May 14 – and perhaps mark the end of the sultan’s era.