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!”
Bu Cumhurbaşkanlığı kararını her vatandaşa ulaştırın!
Depremde binlerce insanımızı kaybettiğimiz Hatay İskenderun’da afet riski altında alan ilan edilen bölge kararının tam bir yıl önce Cumhurbaşkanı Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tarafından kaldırıldığı kararname. pic.twitter.com/m3tGoHvX0n
— Av. Alpay ANTMEN (@avantmen33) February 16, 2023
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.”
Source:Duvar English
