chapter 4 - DRK

Strictly under embargo until Wednesday 22 September at 00:01 GMT (02:01 Geneva time)fast-growing urban environment created overrecent years due to the absence of strategicplanning and informal development that hasresulted in elevated risk. In 1950, Istanbulhad a population of 1.16 million; today it ishome to 12.5 million people and producesone-quarter of the country’s GDP. Since the1999 Izmit earthquake, which killed more than17,000 people and impacted partly on theeastern edges of Istanbul, the city has been wellaware that another devastating earthquake willhappen and the next time possibly with evengreater impact and closer to Istanbul.In addition to earthquakes, flooding is alsobecoming a problem. Throughout the city, industries,residences and even major transportarteries are located on riverbeds and riverbanks.Small-scale flood events are a regularoccurrence, and local news channels periodicallyreport that one or two people have diedin flash floods. In September 2009, the heaviestrainfall recorded in Istanbul in 80 years causedflash flooding leading to the deaths of at least40 people and to US$ 550 million in damages.The bodies of seven women were discoveredin Bagcilar, a working-class suburb. They haddrowned in a minibus that was taking them tojobs at a textile factory.The vulnerability of Istanbul to multiple hazardstoday, in 2010, is a result of decisionsand actions about urban development madeover the last 60 years. Looking at the exampleof housing production in Istanbul shows us howa vulnerability gap is produced over time.Starting from the first waves of immigrationinto Istanbul in the 1940s and continuingthrough the 1980s, housing was producedthrough informal building, called gecekondu(meaning ‘built overnight’). Different versionsof amnesty laws throughout the years (1949,1953, 1963, 1966, 1976, 1983) effectivelygave many occupiers the ‘right to use’ of theland, and municipalities provided services tothese areas and undertook upgrading of publicinfrastructure. In 1984, a law was passed thatallowed the building of gecekondu areas upto four storeys, which dramatically transformedthe landscape of the city from single-storeygarden plots built by families themselves tomulti-storey apartment buildings built by smallscaledevelopers. Today, it is estimated that70 per cent of the housing stock is either illegalor legalized and much housing has been builtwith no supervision for earthquake buildingcodes. If a 7.5 magnitude earthquake (similarto the one in 1999) were to occur, it is estimatedthat of approximately 800,000 buildingsin Istanbul, 25 per cent would have moderatedamage, 10 per cent would have extensivedamage and 5 per cent could be expected tocollapse completely.In the past ten years, since the great earthquakeof 1999, the government has undertakenseveral initiatives to try and reduce theearthquake risk in Istanbul, including urbanmaster plans for earthquake risk reduction,legislative changes regarding building supervision,mandatory earthquake insurance andmandates for municipalities to undertake urbanregeneration projects to replace vulnerablebuildings. Thus, on one side of the vulnerabilitygap, the political will and the expertise forrisk reduction are now present in Istanbul, yetthe capacity for implementation is still lackingas these government initiatives have had littleimpact on the ground thus far.The other side of the gap – people’s abilityto reduce risk – is limited by many factors,including their perception of risk, their knowledgeof earthquake-safe building techniques,complicated ownership structures and financialconstraints. For example, to make existingbuildings safer, authorities have proposedretro fitting to meet earthquake safety standards.46