Turkey’s shoddy builders sold a ‘piece of heaven’ that turned to hell

BCF : Arrest warrants issued for dozens of cost-cutting construction bosses

The slick advertisement describes the luxury apartment complex as a “piece of heaven”, taking viewers on a virtual-reality tour of manicured gardens, generous amenities and people sunbathing beside a swimming pool.

The Ronesans Residence, completed in 2013, was touted as the most desirable abode in Antakya, a city in southern Turkey. According to its promotional video, the development was a place of “flawless comfort” built to exacting safety standards.On February 6, the 12-storey, 250-apartment block collapsed like a house of cards in the 7.7-magnitude earthquake and dozens of powerful aftershocks.

Unlike other structures that crumpled and cracked in the tremors, the Ronesans Residence appears to have fallen sideways, its façade almost intact even after it hit the ground. An artists’ impression shows the luxury Ronesans Residence. Exacting safety standards were part of the marketing pitch An artists’ impression shows the luxury Ronesans Residence.

Exacting safety standards were part of the marketing pitch Exhausted rescue workers from the fire services and military comfort each other Exhausted rescue workers from the fire services and military comfort each other YAVUZ OZDEN/GETTY IMAGES Mehmet Yasar Coskun, the contractor who built it, was arrested when he tried to leave Turkey for Montenegro on Friday.

Warrants for dozens of other construction bosses have been issued. “I don’t know why the building collapsed,” Coskun is reported to have told prosecutors. Turkey’s construction sector is rarely held to the standards that it should meet. In the days since the disaster, it has emerged that the concrete in one building that collapsed in Diyarbakir, 200 miles from the epicentre of the earthquake, had been mixed with silt from a riverbed. Supporting columns of some buildings had been removed by firms occupying the ground-floor units of multistorey blocks.

Ebru Ozturk, 47, who moved to Britain in 2000 and travelled to Kahramanmaras, one of the worst-hit towns, to look for her brother, Tevfik, said that the search for bodies was repeatedly halted to protect the vaults of a bank on the ground floor of her brother’s building. “This is more important than human life?” she asks in a video that shows the vaults moments after her dead sibling was pulled from the rubble. (Edrogan's dirty money are in the banks)

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