Turkey and Syria quakes prompt fresh worries about Istanbul’s building safety

The death toll continues to rise from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake and powerful aftershocks that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria.

As Turkey’s leaders promise a swift start to reconstruction efforts in the earthquake zone, attention is also turning to Istanbul – and whether Turkey’s largest city has done what it can to be ready for a major quake.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long spoken of the need to be ready for natural disasters. A year after an earthquake hit Izmir and surrounding areas in 2020, Erdogan reportedly boasted that the government had been with the people “from the very first minute.”