Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan faces the toughest reelection battle of his two decade rule at elections on Sunday amid widespread anger in the quake region over the speed of his government’s initial response. Reuters was not able to confirm that independently.Ī local court has yet to rule on their appeal. They said construction debris containing 85,000 toxic substances had been dumped in at least 15 sites. In April, a group of medics, environmental engineers and lawyers filed a lawsuit to stop dumping near homes, hospitals, places of worship, olive groves and coastal wetlands. Food and Agriculture Organization.Įfforts to dispose of the waste have been so haphazard that some locals are staging weekly protests calling for better protection. Hatay province, Turkey’s worst-hit region, shows the scale of the unfolding health hazards.Ī province of 1.7 million people and part of an area known as the Fertile Crescent, it is critical for agricultural production and the food industry, accounting for 14.5% of Turkey’s agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the U.N. Turkey’s Ministry for Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, the Health Ministry, and the Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) did not respond to requests for comment for this story. “With an optimistic estimate, I would say that 3 million people will be sick,” said Mehmet Şeyhmus Ensari, civil engineer and Chairman of Turkey’s Association of Asbestos Dismantling Experts. Some experts said a ‘secondary disaster’ of toxic contamination could be even more severe than the quakes themselves. People in many places have rushed to clear mountains of wreckage and dumped the contents of buildings indiscriminately, according to numerous eyewitness reports and television footage.
The United Nations estimated the disaster generated at least 10 times as much rubble as the last big Turkish earthquake in 1999. The sheer volume of debris left by the quake is enormous, even compared to other major disasters. Reuters spoke to a dozen environmental health professionals and experts who said that huge plumes of dust released from demolished buildings are carrying poisons into rivers and plants, lungs and organs, risking serious health problems for years to come. Asbestos, silica, mercury and lead are among thousands of toxins released by the huge earthquakes in February that killed more than 54,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
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