Page 212 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 4

An Evaluation on Damage Assessment Works in
Kahramanmaraş Earthquake

and how to fill in damage assessment forms. Each damage assessment team
consisted of two persons. Damage assessment studies started on 23.08.1999.
1200 technical personnel were delegated to carry out damage assessment
studies. Damage assessment teams, completing their work in 20 days,
assessed the damage of 334 thousand workplaces and residences. People
who suffered from earthquake were given a one-week period to object to the
damage assessments, following that, and damage assessment related to the
objections were started on 27.9.1999. While the study was ongoing on the
results of the objection, the Düzce earthquake hit on 12.11.1999. Since this
earthquake caused new damage in the provinces in the region, the objection
period was extended until 07.12.1999 in all provinces. Damage assessment
studies upon the objections could have been completed on 24.12.1999 in
Yalova, 03.02.2000 in Sakarya and Kocaeli.
According to the information from the AIGM Crisis Management Center
of the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement, as a result of the damage
assessment studies conducted after the August 17 Marmara Earthquake,
66,441 houses and 10,901 workplaces were detected as having severe
damage, 67,242 houses and 9,927 workplaces as moderate damage, 80,160
houses and 9,712 workplaces as minor damage. Since the records of the Izmit
Bay Earthquake and the Düzce Earthquake were kept by integrating them with
each other, damages on the houses and workplaces due to Düzce earthquake
were obtained by extracting the damage numbers of Marmara Earthquake
from the updated compendiums provided from Marmara Earthquake Zone
Disaster-Construction General Coordinator of the Ministry of Public Works
and Settlement. As a result of this study, it was determined that 26,704 houses
and 4,493 workplaces suffered severe damage while 37,825 houses and 6,950
workplaces with moderate damage, 40,944 houses and 5,635 workplaces with
minor damage.

According to the report “Activities of the Ministry of Public Works and
Settlement of Republic of Türkiye after the Marmara and Düzce Earthquakes”
prepared by the Presidency of the Court of Accounts “ within the scope of
Performance Audit Reports, people suffered from the earthquakes made
objections on about one third of damage assessment reports, based on the
results of damage assessment studies in the provinces of Kocaeli, Sakarya
and Yalova. 86% of these objections were accepted in Kocaeli, and by 50%
in Sakarya and 42% in Yalova. These results show that the initial damage
assessments were incorrect. The fact that there were many objections to the
assessment made and that a large part of the objections were justified after
the second examinations indicates that the initial damage assessments were
not made healthily and did not reflect the facts. In addition, the fact that a

Year 2 / Issue 4 / July 2023 201