Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan angrily intervened and halted the preliminary emergency measures taken by three ministers in the early hours after the earthquake hit on 6 February 6, commentator Memduh Bayraktaroğlu said on Thursday.
The first response by Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) agency after the 7.8 magnitude tremor in Turkey’s south at 4:15 am local time, was to prepare a 45-minute preliminary evaluation, an AFAD source told Bayraktaroğlu.
Realising the scale of the destruction, AFAD immediately informed the Ministry of Interior, which in turn rushed to contact the interior minister, Süleyman Soylu.
Soylu then ordered the ministry’s senior officials to inform the minister of defence, Hulusi Akar, and minister of culture and tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy.
The three ministers together decided on an initial response, ordering emergency forces to the affected provinces. Akar telephoned the regional senior officials from the Turkish army to send in military forces, while Soylu told the gendarmerie general command to send in personnel.
Early measures were decided but the Turkish Presidency remained uninformed until almost three hours after the earthquake when Erdoğan woke for morning prayers.
Infuriated with the three ministers for deciding emergency measures without his consent, Erdoğan called Soylu and scolded him using strong insults and slurs, the source said. In his rage Erdoğan halted all emergency AFAD operations and made the agency wait for further instructions.
“At the beginning you journalists severely criticised us, the opposition parties severely criticised us, but believe me, the most innocent people in this case are Minister of Defence Hulusi Akar, Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu and the AFAD,” the source told Bayraktaroğlu.
Turkish President Erdoğan was responsible for the fact that the Turkish military had not begun relief efforts until almost 24 hours after the first quake, the source said.
It is rumoured that the three ministers will resign from the cabinet after the election process is complete, with an official announcement expected on March 5, Bayraktaroğlu said.
The commentator, also a columnist of the Korkusuz newspaper, said this could mean that ministers will engage in the election campaign for Erdoğan but, if he wins, could decline to serve in future cabinets, Bayraktaroğlu said, adding that he does not believe Soylu and Akar will want to give up their posts.
Public trust in governmental institutions was further eroded as claims surfaced that Erdoğan had halted emergency relief operations in the early hours following the earthquake and, for days afterwards, had paralysed disaster relief agencies. If this is true, the Turkish President cost the lives of thousands, as agencies failed to reach survivors stuck under the rubble.
A similar account of events in the early hours after the 6 February earthquake was provided by exiled journalist Said Sefa, based on information received from bureaucrats working in Turkey’s state institutions.
Sefa said that a part of the three ministers’ initial response was to immediately notify international earthquake experts, and that all response units had been alarmed one-and-a-half hours after the tremor. The journalist confirmed that Erdoğan was angry at Soylu and Akar for taking the lead in emergency response without his consent, scolded them, and insisted all operations were halted until further instructions were provided.
The journalist called on any politicians and bureaucrats that witnessed this chain of events to inform the public.
Some 36,187 people died in Turkey as a result of the disaster according to AFAD’s Thursday morning update. Many blame governmental failures for the slow response to the seismic disaster in Turkey, and the ensuing death toll.
