The second set of after-shocks reported yesterday delivered a further blow to an ancient Turkish city which was a model of interfaith tolerance. On Sunday Supplement on 12th February, about 6 minutes in, Times correspondent Hannah Smith related:
Anatakya is a city right on the Turkish/Syrian border [...] a really special and unique place. because it's a mixed city. It's got Christians, it's got Muslims, it's got Jews. It's been a place of refuge for hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees over the past twelve years. [...] It's just the most beautiful ancient city. Now there's nothing left of it.
Smith has no doubt where the blame lies for needless loss of life.
The state's response has been entirely inadequate. When we got there, most of the people who were working at the collapsed buildings were not professional.
[AFAD, the official disaster agency, was slow to get to any of the towns along the line of the earthquake; and]
a lot of the new buildings, particularly in the poorer places, the poorer parts of the country are not being built up to scratch. Everyone knows also about [president] Erdogan's links with the construction companies. You know, these constructors, in particular the five biggest construction firms - they are known here as the "gang of five" - these are owned by businessmen who have conglomerates. What they do is they buy up newspapers - they take them over forcibly - and newspapers, television channels, they give Erdogan and his party blanket propaganda and good coverage and in return they get all the state contracts for construction and everyone has known for a really long time that there has been corruption, there has been incompetence. And we've known that a disaster like this is coming.
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