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LESSONS LEARNED FROM MEGA DISASTERS

The August 17, 1999 Marmara Earthquake

INTRODUCTION

• A large‐scale earthquake occurred in western Turkey on August 17, 1999. This mega earthquake was the worst disaster that has happened in the last century in Turkey.

• ‐The population affected by the disaster is over 4 million excluding Istanbul.

‐ It is 16 million including Istanbul

INTRODUCTION

The earthquake intensity map

INTRODUCTION

• Yalova is a tourism city with natural beauties, located near the coast of the Sea of Marmara.

• The population of Yalova is around 200,000 while the population of the city becomes over 500,000 in the summer and holiday times.

INTRODUCTION

Natural Beauties of Yalova

Tourism city

• Yalova is a tourism city with natural beauties, located near the coast of the Sea of Marmara.

• The hot spring is another beauty of Yalova.

• It hosts more than 300.000 people in the summer season.

Tourism city

• EFFECTS OF A MEGA DISASTER IN YALOVA

EFFECTS OF A MEGA DISASTER IN YALOVA

• Over 3.500 people lost their lives in Yalova.

• 25.000 people became homeless after the disaster.

• 750 small and medium size workplaces were disrupted.


• Over 45,000 of 95,000 buildings in the city were damaged due to the earthquake,

• Over 31,000 of them were demolished in various degrees,

• 14,000 of the buildings in the city were totally destroyed.


• 1. The effects on urban life and public administration:

• Chaos Environment

• Shocking Effect


It is important to implement;

The short term and professional “Shock

Management” and “Crisis Management”.

The Governance mechanism and the public decision‐making organizations have to set a strong, efficient and rapid disaster management system.

2. The public safety problems;

Safety issues in social life are experienced in the short and medium terms after disasters.

‐Chaos and confusion in social life,

‐Degradation of the city’s traffic,

‐Looting and rioting,

‐Buildings left abondoned, work places ‐unprotected.


• 3. Facing the problems on the health and social security systems;

‐Disasters affect the health care personnel working in the area as they are schoced and overworked.

‐The foundations supplying health care services are adversely affected.

‐Health services become out of order.


‐Serious problems are faced in the matter of "Hygiene”.

‐Widespread infectious diseases could arise.

‐ Problems related to remove of the dead and organization of funerals.

4. The collapse of educational army:

Educational infrastructure collapses.

Educational buildings become destroyed or unusable.

Teaching staff are adversely affected or disintegrated by the disaster.

Educational investments decrease or even stop for the following few years.



5. The collapse of urban infrastructure;

• The water, electricity, natural gas and communication network are damaged.

• Fires and natural gas accidents break out,

• Transportation between the city and its surroundings are damaged and interrupted,

• The evacuation operations of the disaster area are hindered.

6. Losses of industrial facilities;

Serious physical substantial damages occur in the industrial plants.

The industrial production partially or completely stops.

The city's economy is experiencing a short‐term crisis.


7. The problem of urban settlement and housing

Devastation on houses occur. Houses get partly or completely damaged; as a result, short, medium and long term accommodation problems occur.

The housing stock in the city seriously loses value in short and midterm.

The destruction and loss in the work places are seen. The economy of the city suffers a short term crisis. Wor places experience a large financial loss.

8. The side effects of earthquakes (the secondary disasters);

The threats of disasters that we faced not only consist of direct harms and dangers, but also we are faced with the secondary effects of disasters.

The earthquake, the petroleum and the chemical plant incidents are the largest crises that Turkey has encountered in the last fifty years.


*We have seen a chemical leakage at one of the textile and chemistry manufacturing plants located in Yalova after the Marmara earthquake.

More than 100,000 people have been affected from this danger. Soil, water and air pollution occurred after the same accident also.

**The petroleum refinery accident occurred at Tupras Oil Refinery in Kocaeli due to the earthquake. As a result of a fire on oil storage tanks, one of the major environmental disasters in Turkey has been experienced. Thousands of people who live around the petroleum refinery remained at risk due to the accidents.

An extreme environmental hazard has been experienced because of the fire in the storage tanks.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM A MEGA‐DISASTER


We can summarize what we have learned

from The August 17, 1999 Marmara

Earthquake as the new legislation suggests;


‐ It has been understood that our basic laws

and administrative structure related with the

disaster management were outdated.

Disaster legislation has been amended to a

great extent, new norms and rules have been

applied.


‐Disaster management systems have thoroughly been changed. Disaster systems being multi‐headed and giving responsibility to a lot of organization have been removed.

In the new disaster management system, the number of the responsible institution is one.


The responsibility and authority of the disasters are given to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).


‐It has been understood that the disaster planning was imaginative in a big deal and left on the paper only. It has been clear the plans including the structure giving duties to a lot of people and consisting of a very broad organization did not match with the real life. We call this type of planning approach “The Paper Plan Syndrome”.

Guidance and education is now being applied avoiding the disaster planning understanding which we will call "The Paper Plan Syndrome”.


‐It is obvious, the areas and buildings we live in our cities had not been constructed safe against the earthquakes. We need to use seismic‐resistant construction codes for buildings and other structures such as industrial facilities.

‐After the August 17, 1999 Marmara Earthquake, the legislation about construction codes for the new buildings has been changed. In order to ensure the construction of the buildings is safe, the new rules and inspection system have been applied.


• “The Earthquake Insurance System" has been started. It is aimed to insure all the constructed buildings against earthquakes.


Total Buildings : 17.661.690Insured Buildings : 6.901.667The Insurence Rate : %39,10


• ‐Legislation that increases the responsibility and authority of the local managements has been redesigned.

• The mitigation and preparedness phases, which are among the steps of the disaster management, have been started giving importance.


‐With the 17 August Earthquake, it has been seen that our rescue teams are short onnumbers and ability. To overcome the inadequacy, search‐rescue associations have been established by the state.

‐Search and rescue teams started to be established by NGOs based on volunteering for the first time in Turkey.


• We have started to implement the psychological support program to disaster victims for the first time in Turkey.

• The psychological support program should be

a part of the disaster management system.


• ‐In The August 17, 1999 Marmara Earthquake it has been understood that mega‐disasters cannot be overcome and handled by only national sources. In order to fight against the effects of this mega‐disaster, rescue and assistance teams from over 50 countries have helped Turkey.


‐Notably UN, World Bank and European Union associations and funds, international associations have had serious supports for the post‐disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction processes.

‐It is understood that all the countries should support any country subject to such mega disasters.

• I have to give my special thanks and respects to Dr.Atsushi Miyazaki for his efforts and sacrifices in Van Earthquake in 2011. We will remember him.

THANKS

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