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Old buildings, like this mosque in Golcuk, were still standing as new ones collapsed around them. Credit: AP

Seismologists and earthquake engineers say that the failure to implement building standards intended to cope with the risk of earthquakes contributed to the appalling death toll in last week's earthquake at Izmit in Turkey.

Earthquake engineers in Turkey and abroad say that many of the thousands of victims of the 17 August earthquake would have survived if new buildings had complied with local building standards.

The epicentre of the earthquake, which registered 7.5 on the Richter scale, was at the industrial port city of Izmit, 80 kilometres east of Istanbul. During the earthquake, parts of Turkey, where the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, slid several metres to the west along the North Anatolian fault.

The risk of earthquakes along the fault, which stretches 1,300 kilometres from the Caucasus through northern Turkey to the Mediterranean sea, is extremely high. In 1939, an earthquake at Erzincan killed 45,000, and 1943, 1944, 1957 and 1967 all saw major earthquakes.

But the densely populated region was unprepared. Thousands died in new apartment buildings built on unsuitable ground and made of low-quality concrete without appropriate reinforcement.

Nicholas Ambraseys, an earthquake engineer at Imperial College in London, says that the transition from the traditional building materials of timber and brick to concrete has led to a serious lack of workmanship in Turkey. As a result, recently constructed apartment buildings collapsed, while older bridges and buildings, as well as most of the historical minarets, survived.

Seismologists say that better scientific knowledge would not have lessened the scale of the disaster. Turkish Earth scientists and engineers are highly regarded and have good contacts with geologists and disaster researchers in Germany, Japan and the United States.

“We have done the most that we can,” says Mustafa Erdik, head of earthquake engineering at the Bosphorus University in Istanbul. But “the existing building codes are simply not being applied”.

The Turkish Ministry of Public Works and Settlement tried to improve compliance two years ago, but the legislation was resisted by the construction industry, and has not been passed by parliament.

Seismologists and engineers from several countries have rushed to Turkey to provide scientific support in monitoring aftershocks and assessing the stability of buildings and water quality. They expect a series of strong aftershocks in the region over the next few weeks.