Erdoğan last year cancelled 'risky' status of demolished neighborhoods in quake-hit Hatay

It has come to light that President Erdoğan had in 2022 abolished a previous decision by the Council of Ministers designating some areas of six neighborhoods in Hatay’s İskenderun district as “a risky area” due to the soil’s structure and bad construction. İskenderun is one of the districts that has seen thousands of buildings collapse after the Feb. 6-dated major earthquakes.

Duvar English

As the death toll from last week’s major earthquakes is nearing 40,000, it has come to light that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had last year cancelled a previous decision designating six neighborhoods in the southern Hatay province as a “risky area.”

The presidential decree issued on Feb. 5, 2022 said that it was “abolishing” a 2013-dated Council of Ministers’ decision about the “designation of some areas in the neighborhoods of Meydan, Cumhuriyet, Modernevler, Numune, Pınarbaşı and Esentepe in Hatay province’s İskenderun district as a risky area.”

Hatay is one of the 11 provinces widely affected by the Feb. 6-dated major earthquakes in southern Turkey.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Alptay Antmen shared a copy of the presidential decree on his Twitter account, saying: “Then it turns out earthquake is not destiny. Because murders of earthquake are political!”

The law defines “risky areas” as those “that have the risk of causing life and property loss due to the soil structure or construction on it.”