On February 6, two devastating earthquakes struck southern Turkey, measuring 7.8 and 7.7 in magnitude, leaving almost fifty thousand people dead and cities uninhabitable with horrific scenes akin to a war zone. Even more than two weeks later, the death toll is climbing daily, with tens of thousands of people under the rubble. Initial reports indicate that the total could surpass seventy thousand. This horrific situation represents the worst natural disaster in Turkey’s modern history.

Despite the country’s historical vulnerability to earthquakes, the Turkish government’s response was nowhere near adequate. Over the course of time, the construction industry has experienced significant growth, as building contractors with connections to president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s political circles used state institutions to finance an authoritarian regime through construction speculation.