Over 2300 dead in Turkey

[Fake Messiah]

2,200 years old Gazintap Castle destroyed by the earthquake in Turkey.

Before vs Now.

Is it just me that thinks those two images don't even look close to being the same castle?

Yeah, it seem damage is not that bad.

[Anomalocaris]

2,200 years old Gazintap Castle destroyed by the earthquake in Turkey.

Before vs Now.

Is it just me that thinks those two images don't even look close to being the same castle

These two photos do not  seem to be taken from the same perspective,   so the damage is hard to assess by comparison,

But apparently the core of that fortress dates to the Hittite era, which would make it already older than any European structure in the US when Romulus and Remus were still suckling from the she wolf.

[Brian37]

Is it just me that thinks those two images don't even look close to being the same castle?

Yeah, it seem damage is not that bad.

Just a flesh wound.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

16 000 confirmed dead. Efforts have gone from rescue to recovery mode.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

16 000 confirmed dead. Efforts have gone from rescue to recovery mode.

Boru

Let’s not forget at least 3000 people are known to have died in Syria as well, and given the recent bitter civil war and sketchy central government authority over many parts of the country, casualties are more likely to be seriously undercounted in Syria than in Turkey, and relief efforts are also likely to be much less effective than across the border.

[Leonardo17]

This Castle probably stood there probably since the Hellenistic period and the foundations probably since the 3rd millennium BC. These wall have seen many earthquakes and this is why it’s so dramatic that even one wall of it collapsed. (As you see in the photo bellow it’s just one wall. Not the entire castle). But it’s still quite a phenomenon because this is a castle that was still in use until the 18th century and the wall were all renovated during the restauration works in the year 2000.

[Leonardo17]

I understand Turkey has one of the strictest earthquake resistant building standards in the world in combination with one of the most corrupt and ineffectual earthquake resistant building standard enforcements in the world.

Basically almost no new building in built in Turkey since the establishment of these standards can meet even a fraction of these standards.

I think it’s better if not everyone knows about the details. But
 
1) We even had taxes that were levied since the year 1999 (date of the former great earthquake we had faced until know with about 20,000 deaths) so that all buildings would be made earthquake resistant. But in this earthquake we saw that newly built public buildings had entirely collapsed. So people are asking questions and I can tell you there are some unanswered questions.
 
2) There is a lack of coordination at every level of the state Apparatus. Before the alleged military coup of 2015 and several purges that were carried out after that event, our military had emergency responses plan that allowed them to be on (all) disaster sites within hours at most. Because I have pledged to not give any detail, I’ll just say that it didn’t happen this time. So again, there are some question marks.
 
3) People have created their own state like in the Gezi Protests of 2015. Everyone, is getting organized and EVERYONE is doing something, one way or the other. So this is also a terrific thing to witness.
 
One thing I can add: Many people do not trust local organizations (not even the Turkish Red Cross that has a 200 year history. So I made donations to a well-known Rock Singer who is directing donations to the affected areas. Non AK Party municipalities are also organizing similar efforts on their own. I also believe international organization like UNICEF to be very trustworthy because we must not forget that rebel-held warzones of Syria were also greatly affected and no one knows if Bashar or Vladimir are going to let aid flow into these regions or not. So here is the UNICEF web page:

https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/Syria...earthquake

[Leonardo17]

There is an enormous problem of racism in the affected regions. And I am not really able to tell if the problems is a scapegoating action backed by social media of if the Problem is truly real. Sin the Arab Spring event of 2015 4 million Syrians have fled to Turkey according to official sources. Other sources are placing this number to at least 10 million Syrians + Many Afghan and other refugees. Left-wing sources blame the ruling AK Party of striking a deal with the EU to house a basically limitless number of refugees on our territory in return for some favors (I don’t really know what these are – Probably cash – That was supposed to be spent on refugees but seems to have been spent on AK Party members themselves since they don’t even seem to have enough burial robes let alone tents for earthquake victims).

+ Syrian refugees who are used to living in extreme conditions since almost 10 years know seem to be more voracious than ordinary citizens and quickly take over the limited number of resources that were deployed for earthquake victims. Thus they are attracting an enormous amount of negative feeling from the ordinary people who already had some resentment toward them since the very beginning. 

I don’t really believe in the reports of looting. If there is looting I think it has to be exceptional. People don’t really think of LCD screens or other valuable items when they are out there in the cold / starving. But the other issue is real. That’s because there was absolutely no regulation in the emigration process of Syrian refugees and many of them are not receiving any type of aid at all. In fact they simply agree to work illegally in several areas causing many regular workers to become unemployed and finally causing resentment among the local population who is most of the time, unable to see the bigger picture (Because of the AK Party being in control of most popular media outlets and paying several groups of social media trolls to direct their attention elsewhere – By the way we are one of the top Twitter / Tik-Tok using societies in the world )

This is why opposition parties are looking for way of reducing the number of those refugees. And I think they are right. France took in some 20,000 people. Germany Just 1,000,000 (Syrians + Afghans). Even places like Jordan, Lebanon, Kurdish Controlled regions of Iraq did not take more than 2 million refugees each. We took some 4 million registered Syrians + Afghans + (perhaps) some 6 million non-registered Syrians with no or minimal organization for those people. And this is just one more problem upon which the present populist government did nothing so that it will be the burden of the next democratically elected government to solve during the coming years.

One interesting article on the subject:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/earthquake-fa...54266.html

(Additional Info: The death toll is likely to exceed the 50 M figure   )

[Leonardo17]

   Time Magazine has a very nice summary article on what has really happened in South-Eastern Turkey. Of course natural disasters are simply terrible things. But what is important here is to learn the lessons and understand how populism works. With his state controlled media, his Putin-style propaganda machine, his troll farms that promote all sorts of nonsense on social media networks Erdogan has managed to present himself as an almighty neo-Ottoman type of ruler. He polarized society with Donald Trump type methods. He ignored and mocked intellectuals, scientists, journalists, alpinists. He filled very trustworthy institutions with the leaders of religious sects. He presented himself as a modern era prophet who understood religion better than anyone else. For 20 years all we had here was extremes, incompetence in all areas + mobs that stood behind the AK Party organization just like the black-shirts of Italian fascists or the brainwashed mobs of the Third Reich who stood with their leader even when the Red Army was pushing for its final strike on Berlin.
 
   There was a huge earthquake disaster (the Marmara earthquake) in August 1999. Some political islamists had attributed this even to a “divine retribution” to the secular regime in Turkey (In fact it would not be an exaggeration to say that that event did help this AK Party to seize power at that time). What I am going to do is something similar. I see this event as a warning to the whole world actually. (I mean that this natural event has exposed the true nature of populist ideologies. If it’s pure coincidence, this coincidence should help to see what governments that take their power from troll-farms and disinformation are really doing – or not doing to be more precise ) This is what populism is. These guys (or gals) just stand there as if they have the solution to everything and they are not one of those hypocrites who do nothing but steal from the ordinary people. This event simply demonstrates that everything that populist leader pledge to their people (wherever these populists may be). Is nothing but emptiness. They simply don’t qualify. They are the exact opposite of what they are claiming to be. So here is the full article.
 
 https://www.yahoo.com/news/erdo-obsessio...52459.html


+ Obrigada Amigos (Thank you Friends) to the Brazilian people

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rios-christ-lit-turkey-syria-154511245.html

[Leonardo17]

   I’m going to share some elements because this event really shows how populist operate. This is how a political islamist, a bolsonarist or a putinist will operate at any given time in any situation.


    The powers being concentrated on one person, the regime did not send the army during the first 48 hours of the earthquake. The reason for that is that he didn’t want the army to regain some sort of “popularity” before the elections that are going to happen in the month of May. In a similar way, miners were not allowed to disaster regions (because they were not directly tied to the regime). Many people who were alive, wo could yell, who could talk died under the rubbles (basically by freezing) because no one came to their rescue. Foreign rescue groups were stranded for hours in airports and some of them (like the Spanish) simply left because government officials did not let them do their jobs. Field hospitals belonging to İtalians are siting in some place empty because no one is directing the wounded to these hospitals. Some other foreign field hospitals were moved 3 time (because according to their logic these people are not “one of theirs”). Private aid groups like the aid group of the Rock Singer Haluk Levent were targeted by government officials and by social media trolls again, because they want to be seen as the only ones who are delivering help. People do not Trust the AFAD or the Turkish Red Cross (these government agencies) because the regime placed İmam’s and theologians to the highest offices of these century old institutions. We have a world class alpinist called Nashruh Mahruki who climbed the Everest and founded the AKUT, a top level / world class search and rescue team that could intervene in such events. The man (a man who climbed mount Everest) was thrown out of this institution and than the AKUT was transformed into the AFAD which is not operating at its best and everyone knows it.

   This is not a situation that is limited to earthquakes. Mine incidents calming the lives of hundreds, huge wildfires that are being extinguished by civilian efforts only have become the norm of my country. The state is simply not present. Instead prayers are being chanted from minarets and the events are being called “the plan of God / Destiny’s work” and victims are being called “Martyrs” (by the way, the term martyr in Islam only applies to those who die defending their country in a situation of war / we don’t even have religious martyrs as they do in Christianity).

   Today, 20 day since the earthquake, it is still civilians who come to the aid of civilians. Government institutions do play a role but it’s not really the lion share of the work being done there. One key issue: Antony Blinken was here last week. If the “president” has asked, I believe tents could be sent to the Incirlik airbase that is located in the affected within a matter of hours. But the president did not make such a demand. He had other issues on his mind (probably).

   Still, State-controled media denies all of this, but there are still people without tents, toilets, showers, hygienic materials, heating ovens, fuel for these ovens etc. Volunteers + state officials who go to that area are said to be facing huge difficulties themselves.

   As a reminder: in the Marmara earthquake in 1999 the army + miners were on the spot within hours. + all sorts of basic necessities were also met within hours without anyone even asking for foreign aid. And as far as I remember, there was no huge civilian mobilization. The state or government was there from the first two hours until the end of the crisis. So what has happened is that this “neo-Ottoman” / populist dream of theirs kind of F.d all of our institutions. So the discourse adopted is now based of the severity of the earthquake. But this is a lie. We are a Japan-like country and everyone above the age of 20 has seen at least one major earthquake event in his / her lifetime.

   This is like “The Pest” being described in the book of Albert Camus. Populism is the greatest evil of our time. And the only thing I am thankful about is that there is always a worse of the worse. Still people have to see that autocracies are dangerous. Regimes that are based on lies and propaganda are a danger to the very people they are ruling and the main reason why I hate Russia + Iran is that these regimes have the tendencies to back one another (like Xi Chi Ping backing Putin at this moment). Here is a short article on the current situation of tents 20 days after the earthquake:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/turkey-quake-survivors-struggle-shelter-132035704.html