Monday, December 30, 2024

Earthquake’s Burden to Turkey

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(Photo by Mahmoud Sulaiman)

By Yusuf Tuna Alemdar, Political Science and International Relations Student at TOBB Ekonomi ve Teknoloji Üniversitesi 

On February 6, 2023 – in the early hours of the morning- a major earthquake occurred damaging both Southern Turkey and North-western Syria. According to the BBC, the earthquake has a magnitude of 7.8 which classifies as major on the official magnitude scale. The Earthquake broke the fault line about 100km (62 miles). 

Although Turkish officials and academics expected an earthquake in the Southern Anatolian plate, the Kahramanmaraş Earthquake was a surprising one due to the fact that the region had never dealt with any tremors and earthquakes .

This image shows where the earthquake was felt in Turkey and Syria.

The photo was taken from the BBC article: Turkey earthquake: Where did it hit and why was it so deadly?

HOW DO EARTHQUAKES OCCUR?

A very simple definition of an earthquake would be the Earth’s violent shakings caused by the movements of rocks beneath the surface. As the South Carolina Geological Survey explained in a nutshell, rocks beneath the surface of the earth create some type of stress to the energy created. With this stress, rocks close to the surface break and move along the fracture. These fractures are called the faults. There are several types of faults which can shift horizontally, vertically or a combination of both. 

According to BBC, the Kahramanmaraş Earthquake in the Arabian Plate’s -the rock structures beneath the surface of the Earth- movement through to the Anatolian Plate created a 7.8 magnitude earthquake which damaged 11 provinces of Southern Turkey and the Northwest side of Syria.

Types of earthquakes as explained.

Source : South Carolina State Library 

WHAT IS THE DAMAGE OF THE EARTHQUAKE TO THE COUNTRY?

According to the World Bank’s natural disaster report, 1.25 million people are currently homeless due to the damage to the infrastructure caused by the earthquake. The geography of the region affected by the earthquake consists of 11 provinces which are Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Gaziantep, Adıyaman, Adana, Diyarbakır, Malatya, Elazığ, Kilis and Şanlurfa. Although nearly all of these provinces suffered some type of damage, the World Bank report estimates that 81% of the damage occurred in Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Gaziantep, Malatya and Adıyaman which have a population of 6.45 million people. 

The report of the World Bank calculates that 53% of the direct damages are to the residential buildings, 28% of the damage occurred in non-residential buildings such as health facilities, schools, government buildings and private sector buildings. 19% percent of the damage affected the infrastructure such as roads, power and water supplies. 

The Interior Minister of Turkey Süleyman Soylu announced that the current official number of deaths is 45,968.

AFTERMATH OF THE EARTHQUAKE FOR TURKEY’S ECONOMY

According to the World Bank’s natural disaster report, the direct physical damage to Turkey can be estimated as $34.2 billion which is equal to 4% of the country’s GDP in 2021. In a normal situation, Turkey’s economy was expected to grow by about 3-3.5% in 2023. With the massive earthquake, there will be a loss of 2.0-2.5% in the growth. Therefore, the GDP of Turkey will grow at a rate of 0.0-0.1% in 2023. The expected growth rate in the GDP is way below the average population growth rate which is naturally around 1.5%. This major loss in the GDP is caused by the massive economic importance of the 11 provinces which are affected by the earthquake.  

The economic burden which comes with any natural disaster is actually based on the country’s conditions. As a CEPR report explains, poorer economies with lower levels of government spending are more likely to experience larger negative effects. These effects might change from one province to another since every provinces economic conditions might differ from one another. As the world bank report shows, the 11 provinces which are affected by the Earthquake in Southern Turkey have one of the highest poverty rates. 

Although there will be serious impacts of the earthquake on the Turkish economy, the damage can be lowered by the fiscal response of the state. The CEPR report shows that the Turkish Government has pledged more than $5 billion for the recovery. However, it is a known fact from the World bank report that the direct damage of the earthquake is $34.3 billion. Hence, the Turkish Government must pledge more recovery funds. It is obvious that -at this point- the international support -which is generously given since the earthquake happened- is highly needed.

Yusuf Tuna Alemdar
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Yusuf Tuna Alemdar is a Turkish student, currently studying Political Science and International Relations at the TOBB University of Economics and Technology. He is very passionate about science and scientific improvement, spending most of his time trying to excel at science. His main interests are political science, economy and mathematics. Since he loves writing articles, he believes that complex information in contemporary World Politics and science can be explained briefly to increase the awareness of people. He is currently helping one of the faculty members at TOBB ETU in her research on Political Economy.

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