The Turkish Contractors Association (TMB), one of the most rooted non-governmental organizations in the Turkish construction industry, made a call within the scope of the 1-7 March Earthquake Week. Emphasizing that there are more than 400 thousand contractors in our country and some of them are people who have never received technical education, let alone technical education, TMB President M. Erdal Eren said, “Earthquakes bring destruction and pain in our country. We see that first of all, the urban transformation process should be completed urgently, as we have said at every opportunity, by focusing on disasters.” said.

Turkish Contractors Association (TMB) has released a statement due to the 1-7 March Earthquake Week. TMB President M. Erdal Eren pointed out that more than 45 thousand of our citizens lost their lives in the earthquakes that occurred in Kahramanmaraş and that concerns continue due to the ongoing earthquakes, “Earthquakes bring destruction and pain in our country. We see that first of all, the urban transformation process should be completed urgently, as we have said at every opportunity, by focusing on disasters.

TMB President M. Erdal Eren stated the following in the statement:

“We are suffering as a nation from the earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş that took place on February 6, directly affecting approximately 14 million of our citizens in 11 provinces and causing the death of more than 45 thousand citizens. We wish God’s mercy on our lost citizens and get well soon to our entire country, and we hope that similar disasters will happen once again. It is our greatest hope that it does not happen.

With the ongoing disasters, the reality of earthquakes in our country often reappears. As we always say, we must now face the fact that people are not killed by earthquakes, but by neglect and defective structures. In the ‘Construction Sector Declaration’, which we announced under 10 articles as the constitution of our sector in 2014, we pointed out the problems and solution proposals regarding building safety. Since then, nature reminds us of the importance of ‘correct planning, right project, competent contracting and strict control’ in the construction of our country.

In the construction industry, we have great weaknesses in areas such as training, supervision and responsibility. We have experienced examples of this with deep pain in recent earthquakes. There are more than 400 thousand contractors in our country, and some of them are people who have never received any training, let alone technical training. First of all, the ‘Regulation on Classification and Recording of Building Contractors’, which was issued in 2019 for the classification of building contractors according to their economic, financial, professional and technical competencies, should be implemented throughout the country effectively and without compromise. The control system mechanisms in the sector should also be strengthened. Recognizing the fact that the responsibility is multilateral in the process, we should remove practices like zoning amnesty from our agenda altogether, and on the contrary, we should ensure that the sanctions are deterrent.

Unfortunately, in our country, there is a very large stock of buildings built with the specifications before the 1999 Marmara Earthquake. Accelerating the urban transformation steps with a ‘disaster-oriented’ approach is of great importance. There is a need for the transformation to be carried out with the support of the state by evacuating the unsafe structures quickly without being left to the initiative of the citizens. In an environment where the possibility of an earthquake in Marmara is increasing day by day and risks continue in other regions, we have no time to waste to prepare for an earthquake.

As TMB, together with other umbrella organizations of the construction sector, we consider it necessary for a solution after the earthquake of 2020; On the occasion of Earthquake Week, I would like to remind the public and interested parties once again the titles of ‘Competent Construction Contractor, Strong Construction Supervision, Competent Engineering System, Workforce with Professional Competence Certificate, Quality Materials, Versatile Zoning Legislation and Conscious Public Opinion’.