Page 191 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 4

Hilmi Tutar

10 thousand workplaces with moderate damage, 80 thousand houses and 9
thousand 700 workplaces with light damage, and 17,479 people lost their lives
and 43,953 people were injured (Özmen, 1999:6).
Finally, the Kahramanmaraş-based earthquakes that occurred on February
6, 2023, affected about 14 million people in 11 provinces in an area larger
than the Marmara earthquake, and the extent of the damage caused was
much greater. 50 thousand 500 people deceased, the reconstruction of 650
thousand houses is an issue on the agenda (TRT, 2023a)
Disasters caused by floods have caused great losses of life and property in
the history of Türkiye. Floods occuring as a result of the acceleration of water
flow due to the destruction of vegetation by human beings, reducing the
absorption of water by the soil due to concretion, insufficient infrastructure
and improper land use have a devastating effect along with climate change
in many regions, especially in the Black Sea region. (MGM, 2022). There were
great losses in the flood disasters that occurred in İstanbul in 1553 and 1789,
4
in Tokat in 1908 and Ankara in 1957. 169 people lost their lives in the flood
disaster that occurred in the Ankara Hatip Creek Valley basin in 1957, where
natural balance was disturbed by the opening the basin to settlement. 27
people died in Pazar, Rize in 1981 while 51 people in Çamlıhemşin and 57
people in Akçaabat, Trabzon deceased in 1990. Finally, 97 people lost their
lives in the floods that occurred in Kastamonu and Bartın in 2021.

3.Urban Transformation as a Tool to Protect from Disasters
Urban transformation is defined as the intervention to regenerate an urban
area due to obsolescence, wearing or disaster risk (Ülger, 2010) and can
be described as a whole of strategies and actions applied to improve the
economic, social, physical and environmental conditions of this urban space,
which is deteriorating for various reasons, with comprehensive and integrated
approaches (Başarır, 2010). Due to the above-mentioned reasons, the fact that
a large part of the building stock of our country carries a risk, especially against
earthquakes, and the renovation of 6-7 million houses with high vulnerability
has brought Urban Transformation to the agenda. 5
4 During the flood disaster experienced in Tokat on June 12, 1908, 459 buildings were either
completely or partially destroyed, 223 people drowned, including 208 people from the public and
15 people from the military service.
5 it is generally accepted that the vulnerability of the pre-1999 building stock is higher. Buildings
with high vulnerability constitute about 80% of pre-2000 building stock. According to the building
census in 2000, number of buildings before 2000 is 7.838.675 (79,5%) and number of apartments is
16.235.830 (56,3%). 3,792,092 of these buildings (48.4%) are reinforced concrete, while 4,001,954
(51.1%) of them are masonry structures. 46.2% of the buildings are single-storey, 29.2% of them
are two-storey, 10.6% are three-storey and the remaining 14% are with four or higher floors. More-
over, 74.9% of these buildings are used for residential purposes, 12.1% are used either residential

180 The Journal of Environment, Urban and Climate