The February 6 earthquake, which devastated southern Turkey, abruptly revealed the limits of the centralized power promoted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Emergency services took several days to reach the epicenter of the affected region, while survivors, abandoned and without food, tried to pull their relatives from the rubble.
The influential Turkish army was not immediately mobilized. The government, in order to maintain full control of the situation, preferred to entrust operations to the public disaster management agency, Afad, which quickly found itself overwhelmed by the scale of the tragedy.
Erdogan acknowledged “deficiencies” in the organization of emergency tasks, but claimed that no one could have acted better in the face of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which struck overnight and hit urban areas.
Eleven days after the quake, more than 36,000 bodies were pulled from the rubble in Turkey, a toll that the UN believes is likely to increase considerably.
“Centralization affects all institutions in Turkey, including those that shouldn’t be hit, like AFAD,” says Hetav Rojan, disaster management adviser in Denmark, who follows the situation in Turkey closely.
According to Rojan, the hypercentralization of power made it difficult to mobilize aid in the most affected regions, including the arrival of foreign teams.
“For effective management of rescue services, it is necessary to do the opposite: empower local teams with local resources”, highlights the expert.
But, according to Rojan, “the Turkish government is seriously trying to control the national narrative of aid management”.
– Discussions –
Social networks are full of testimonials from volunteers who tried to help neighbors, but who were forced to wait for authorizations or teams that took a long time to reach the affected places.
Even the crane operators who offered help, which the rescuers needed, had to wait for AFAD approval.
AFP correspondents witnessed discussions between NGO volunteers and AFAD representatives in Elbistan, in the province of Kahramanmaras, where the temperature reached 15 degrees below zero on some nights.
“We started working on the rubble, despite AFAD’s efforts to dissuade us. When we heard the voice of a survivor, the AFAD teams pushed us away and took over our work”, says a volunteer, who did not reveal his name.
Murat, 48, was waiting for news from relatives in Kahramanmaras when he witnessed a similar scene.
“When miners from Zonguldak (on the Black Sea) located a living person under the rubble, they were removed and replaced by others who wanted to appear on camera,” he says.
Charitable organization Ahbap and several opposition-led city governments have come under fire from the presidency after they ran independent aid missions.
– “No coordination” –
“There was no coordination. They delayed in the most critical hours (…) Their incapacity cost the lives of tens of thousands of compatriots”, said the leader of the main opposition party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
For Erdogan, the criticism is a “slander” and an exercise in “disinformation with the aim of underestimating the efforts made with such courage”.
The two politicians must face each other at the polls on May 14, if the date of the presidential election is confirmed.
In 1999, after the earthquake that hit the northwest of the country, the famous Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand denounced the mediocre management of the emergency services: “Turkey, which used to boast of its greatness and power, has turned into a paper tiger”, he said. .
Authorities vowed at the time to learn the lessons of failure and assured that emergency services would be strengthened.
According to Hetav Rojan, “it is still too early to know whether the attempt to control the narrative will work for the government”.
“But it is a political test for Erdogan before the next elections”, he concludes.
#Earthquake #tests #limits #Erdogans #centralizing #power #ISTOÉ #DINHEIRO