In the regions affected by the earthquake, criticisms rise against the receipts of the rescue and target the head of state, three months from the elections. The latest assessment given by the Turkish authorities on Thursday amounts to 14,351 dead in the country.
by Nicolas Bourcier (Adana (Turkey), Special Envoy)
The earthquake occurred on Monday, February 6, early in the morning, in this gigantic region located in southern Turkey, along the Syrian border, and whose results amounted to more than 14,300 dead on Thursday -and more than 3,000 in Syria -could cost Recep Tayyip Erdogan his re -election during the presidential election, planned in mid -May. And he knows it. Arrived on the spot Wednesday, for his first visit to the victim zone in Kahramanmaras, a city close to the epicenter, the head of state presented himself as the father of the nation, alone capable of ensuring that the victims be neat and the survivors hosted.
In front of a small group of inhabitants of the city partly destroyed, he promised that social housing would be built for all survivors within a year and announced the distribution of 10,000 Turkish pounds (494 euros) with each disaster victim. He also admitted that “there were, of course, gaps” on the first day, advancing that “it is impossible to be prepared for such a disaster”, but that “things are now taken up in hand” .
And the Head of State to add: “A few dishonest and dishonorable people have published false statements in which they claim:” We have not seen soldiers or police “. Our soldiers and our police are Honorable people, we are not going to let people who are unavailable to talk about them as well. “
” God must punish this government “
This attempt at comfort, mixed with threats to criticism, whose tone is characteristic of the Turkish president, occurs at a particularly difficult and tense moment in the management of this human catastrophe unprecedented since the 1999 earthquake in Izmit . As a sudden explosion of anger, voices denouncing the gaps and the absences of the emergency services multiplied on Tuesday, spreading on social networks. In the rubble, survivors were indignant at the inaction of the authorities, saying “abandoned” in the cold, without water or electricity. Rare thing a few days ago: the name of Erdogan was then quoted, openly pointed out, and the president accused of carrying responsibility for this imperiousness.
Here, in the city of Kirikhan, he is an old man claiming to be an AKP historic, the Party of Justice and Development, the training in power, who, Face On the camera, howls that his family is under the rubble and that “God must p unite this government “. There, in Adiyaman, an angry crowd attacks the governor supervised by a large cord of police officers and challenges him: “Where are aid and help?”. In Malatya, when a deputy who came on the spot requests, in front of destroyed buildings, why no one came to work there, a survivor retorts: “Because here, there is no one and no state . “
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