Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

Re:Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of constructi... by notlukesky on Monday February 13, 2023 @03:25PM (#34779837)

Building companies are close to the government everywhere. Try getting permits without access to the city council or mayor. Turkey is a major faultline (and most of the northern Mediterranean) and seems to constantly have earthquakes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Turkey

In the same area of the earthquakes now (the size of the UK) there was an earthquake in 115 AD that killed 260 thousand people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/115_Antioch_earthquake

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Re:Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of constructi... by TomK32 on Monday February 13, 2023 @03:53PM (#34780272)

The source of the 260 thousand killed is unknown and a century after the event, according to the same Wikipedia article, but Antioch also had a Circus, built during the time of Augustus, that could host 80 thousand spectators.

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Re:Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of constructi... by andrepd on Monday February 13, 2023 @04:08PM (#34780519)

> Try getting permits without access to the city council or mayor

It's depressing/comforting to know that my town is not unique in this regard.

I have the impression that local power is always more corrupt than central/national power. Less scrutiny and more opportunity for doing dirt without getting caught.

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Re:Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of constructi... by 8bitsrule on Tuesday February 14, 2023 @12:44AM (#34785876)

There was another, smaller (est 7.5 vs. 7.0) quake in late May of 526:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/526_Antioch_earthquake

(followed by a fire) that also reportedly killed 250 thousand. The two figures are close.

A lot of historically big numbers turn out to be greatly exaggerated, maybe as a part of the storytelling process. For example, some old books claimed the toll of the 1737 Calcutta (quake or cyclone) was around 300,000 - while there were no more than 10,000 residents at the time. https://rashidfaridi.com/2008/05/13/earthquakes-in-asia/

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