Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu made a detailed presentation about “Earthquake” during the Assembly Meeting in Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM). He firstly reminded that IMM has conducted lots of projects, studying, implementations with related institutions and organizations after 1999 Marmara Earthquake and said that “Even though determinations, prioritisation were made and, implementation proposals were developed, Istanbul is not ready for the anticipated Istanbul Earthquake. Because all these studies were not realized or could not be realized. Istanbul has no more endurance left to wait ”.
Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu emphasized that “Earthquake Mobilisation Plan” were put into action. He said that “IMM gets ready to make Istanbul more stronger against the earthquake with the support of Istanbul residents.”
He stated that the earthquake with a magnitude 5.8 occuring at a depth of 12.6 km off the Marmara Sea near distirct of Silivri was affrightment in the community. He added that 5253 notifications were received by IMM and AFAD after Silivri Earthquake. He noted that however it was not a large earthquake, there was 224 heavily damaged and 754 slightly damaged buildings were detected. Imamoğlu shared that there is a 65% possiblity to occur 7 or more magnitude earthquake in the next 30 years for Istanbul.
“120 BILLION TL ECONOMİC LOSS WILL OCCUR”
After stating that the housing night-time population of Istanbul is 15 million and the housing day-time population is 6 million, Imamoglu noted that 255 thousand of the 1 million 166 thousand buildings in the city were built before 1980, 533 thousand between 1990-2000 and 376 thousand between 2000-2019.
He also listed the economic and physical losses and damages against the potential Istanbul Earthquake
according to “Earthquake and Damage Loss Estimation Study” conducted by Directorate of Earthquake and Ground Analysis and Boğaziçi University in 2018. He said that when potential destructive earthquake occur with a magnitude 7.5 or more, there will be nearly 48 thousand heavily and heavily damaged buildings and approximately 194 thousand moderate and more damage buildings. He continued that 30% of the roads will be blocked in Istanbul. He added that there will be damages at 463 drinking water points, 1045 waste water points and 355 natural gas points in Istanbul. A total of 120 billion TL of structural and non-structural economic loss will be experienced.
5 ARTICLES FOR MOBILISATION
He emphasized that the highest priority agenda of IMM is earthquake according to the results of the loss estimation studies and Imamoğlu said that “ Our primary goal is to take necessary precautions against to earthquake immediatelly instead of response and recovery studies against to in any loses.
Imamoglu highlighted that “Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Earthquake Mobilisation Plan” was prepared by evaluating the following 5 headings:
– Disaster based urban transformation studies.
– Making the existing infrastructure and transportation network resilient to disasters.
– Seismic and earth science studies.
– Post-disaster assembly/shelter areas.
– Disaster based training and capacity building.
