A dozen people in the construction industry have been arrested in Turkey after thousands of buildings collapsed in the south of the country following Monday’s earthquake, local media reported on Saturday.
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A dozen people in the construction industry have been arrested in Turkey after thousands of buildings collapsed in the south of the country following Monday’s earthquake, local media reported on Saturday.
Among those detained are an entrepreneur from the province of Gaziantep and eleven people from the province of Sanliurfa, according to the Turkish agency DHA.
The brutal collapse of the buildings, which betrays their poor construction and left their residents virtually no chance, has sparked anger in the country where nearly 22,000 people have died and more than 80,000 have been injured.
Other arrests are expected after the prosecutor of Diyarbakir, one of the ten provinces affected by the disaster, announced on Saturday that he had issued 29 arrest warrants, reports the official Anadolu agency.
According to this source, one of those detained is an entrepreneur who built buildings in Gaziantep and was arrested in Istanbul.
Several investigations have been launched by prosecutors in stricken provinces such as Kahramanmaras, where Pazarcik district was at the epicenter of the quake.
Turkey’s Justice Ministry has ordered prosecutors in all ten provinces to open “earthquake-related crime investigation offices”.
On Friday, the police arrested at Istanbul airport an entrepreneur from the province of Hatay, whose luxury Renaissance residence completely collapsed on its inhabitants.