Iranians are following the earthquake catastrophe in Syria and Turkey with empathy, but also with concern: the authorities in Iran have learned little from the devastating earthquakes of the past.
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Destructed buildings in Hatay, Turkey after the February 2023 earthquake
The news about the earthquake catastrophe in Syria and Turkey moves many people in Iran. Turkey is among the few countries in the world that Iranians can enter without a visa. At least half a million Iranians live permanently in the neighboring country. And many Iranians feel for the victims and their families.
The people of Iran know about earthquake disasters from their own experience. Like Turkey, Iran is among the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. Now fear is in the air again. In the state media, experts warn of apocalyptic scenes of destruction in the densely built-up capital of Tehran, which has a population of more than 15 million. There are several geological fault lines in the earth's crust under Tehran.
Many buildings in the city of Tehran are not earthquake proof
Corruption and ignorance
“Both in Iran and in Turkey there are very modern and progressive earthquake standards – on paper,” writes Hamid Sadegh-Azar when asked by DW. The professor for structural analysis and structural dynamics from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern-Landau adds: “The main problem is usually the non-observance of the earthquake regulations. In order to make a building earthquake-proof, you have to pay attention to many small details during planning and construction and these too execute and implement correctly. In Iran or Turkey, most of the construction work is done with untrained workers. If the construction supervision is also negligent, ignorant or corrupt, in the end there will hardly be an earthquake-proof structure.”
In the meantime, numerous building contractors have been arrested in Turkey. They are said to have been in charge of collapsed buildings. A businessman believed to have been responsible for overseeing the construction of numerous collapsed buildings in Adiyaman has been arrested with his wife at Istanbul Airport, the DHA news agency reported. The two wanted to go to Georgia with a large amount of cash.
Turkey: The earthquake of the century and the consequences
“Companies and investors want to save as much as possible and reduce their costs,” Roozbeh Eskandari told DW. Eskandari worked for almost ten years as a building inspector in the Iranian capital, Tehran. “In the case of high-rise buildings in particular, the façade and everything you see at first glance is unfortunately more important than investing in the building fabric. Investors bribe the authorities and don't follow the rules. Or the authorities themselves are owners or part-owners of the building. Then they allow a lot more than what is allowed, for example a few extra floors. An example of this in Iran was the metropolitan skyscraper in the city of Abadan in southwestern Iran, which simply collapsed in May 2022. “
After the shock, the negligence
Iran has experienced three major earthquakes in the past 60 years, with many fatalities: 1962 in Buinzahra in the north-west with 13,000, 1990 Manjil-Rudbar in the north with around 40,000 and the 2003 earthquake in Bam in the south-east with around 28,000 dead. The boundary between the Eurasian and Arabian plates runs through Iran. The Arabian Plate is moving northward towards the Eurasian Plate by up to three centimeters per year. In doing so, it deforms the rock masses in Iran and puts them under tension. The discharges again and again in earthquakes, most recently at the end of January in the city of Khoy in the north-west. There were three dead and over 2000 injured. Many buildings collapsed or were severely damaged, including some new construction.
“After every disaster, sensitivity increases for a short time,” says Parisa Kloss, an architect and urban planner, in an interview with DW. “For example, in 2003, when a violent earthquake destroyed the historic city of Bam, I was working for the Iranian Ministry of Roads and Urban Development. I traveled to Bam and accompanied seminars and projects that were being carried out in cooperation with other countries, especially Germany and Japan. started. The German scientists were interested in the reconstruction of the destroyed citadel of Bam in Iran, the largest mud building in the world. Later, projects such as the construction of half-timbered houses in the earthquake areas were also presented. This is a very good idea, but it was expensive and time-consuming to implement, which is why unfortunately hardly anything grew from it. The cooperation waned over time and was finally forgotten.”
Kloss, who has lived in Germany since 2011 and run her company there, ” Resilient Urban Planning and Development”, draws a bitter balance: “The authorities have hardly learned anything from the earthquakes in Iran that have claimed many victims lack of people praying that there will be no earthquakes.”