Earthquake-Vulnerable Populations in Modern Turkey

EVERE earthquakes in southern Italy and at Al-Asnam, Algeria, in 1980 were deadly reminders of the need not only to perfect the means to predict earthquakes but also to understand characteristics of earthquake-vulnerable populations. Earthquakes have not increased in frequency or intensity in recent decades, but as world population increases more and more persons will be affected by them.' Earthquakes are a normal part of geologic processes, and it is better to learn to live with them than to die because of them. Every region has its own unique set of physical and cultural characteristics that determine the effects of earthquakes on the local population. These characteristics may also hinder or facilitate postdisaster recovery. I include not only material characteristics such as the architecture of the affected area but also the regional economic infrastructure and the social and demographic features of the population. If the particular qualities of an affected population can be identified in advance, governmental and world-relief organizations may be able to prepare better than they currently do to respond to the crises. But the world is large, and it is impossible to devote the same amount of preplanning to every place and population. The purpose of this article is to suggest a way to identify population subgroups in a given country that are particularly vulnerable to earthquakes and to describe some characteristics of their physical and social environments. The usefulness of this approach should be apparent, if, for example, the prolongation of suffering and the charges and countercharges of tardiness and inefficiency that accompanied the earthquakerelief efforts in southern Italy in 1980 are considered. In order to clarify the method proposed here, I elected to examine conditions in the Republic of Turkey, one of the most earthquake-vulnerable parts of the seismically unstable circum-Mediterranean region. A description of the terror and the destruction caused by earthquakes in Turkey would fill a thick volume. The details of Anatolian seismotectonics are too complex and, as yet, too little known to be the focus of this study. My analysis attempts to delimit the parts of Turkey that are particularly vulnerable to earthquake disaster, to estimate the numbers of persons living in this seismic jeopardy, and to describe briefly the relative socioeconomic conditions of these groups in order to reveal the potential effects of earthquakes on them. It is hoped that the materials presented here will call attention to the magnitude of this critical environmental problem and will suggest an efficient method

Ancient history · Forensic engineering · Geography · Disaster Management and Resilience · Engineering · History

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