Owner and architect of Turkey’s seismic collapse hotel jailed

A Turkish court has condemned the owner and architect of a hotel that collapsed after an earthquake in 2023, killing seventy-two people, to prison.

According to the official Anadolu news agency, architect Erdem Yilmaz and Isias Grand owner Ahmet Bozkurt were each sentenced to 18 years and five months. It stated that Mehmet Fatih, Bozkurt’s son, received a sentence of 17 years and four months.

When the earthquake struck last February, the hotel in the southeast city of Adiyaman was housing a group of tour guides and a school volleyball team from northern Cyprus, which is under Turkish rule.

It was determined that the three men had committed “caused the death or harm of more than one person via conscious negligence,” according to Anadolu.

According to the new AFP agency, Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Unal Ustel stated that authorities would appeal the punishments, which he thought were too light.

According to Ustel, “Hotel owners did not get the punishment we had expected,” However, everyone who was involved in the hotel’s development, including the architect, received a sentence. We were somewhat pleased by that.

The earthquake on February 6, 2023, claimed the lives of almost 50,000 people across Syria and Turkey.

One and a half million people were left homeless as some 160,000 structures collapsed or suffered significant damage.

A few weeks later, the Turkish authorities announced that almost 200 persons, including property owners and construction contractors, had been arrested and that hundreds more were being investigated.

When the earthquake occurred, 39 individuals from Famagusta Turkish Education College—young, instructors, and parents—had traveled to Adiyaman for a volleyball competition.

Among them, just four parents survived. They were able to extricate themselves from the debris, but 35 others, including all of the children, perished.

Up to 40 tour guides were present for training, and the volleyball team had chosen the seven-story Isias Grand.

One of the most well-known hotels in Adiyaman fell apart in a matter of seconds.

Although the Isias had been in operation since 2001, scientific study revealed that the structure’s columns were made of a mixture of sand and gravel from the nearby river and other building materials.

Widespread criticism of the Turkish government for promoting a construction boom while neglecting to enforce building restrictions that had been strengthened following previous catastrophes was spurred by the magnitude of building collapses during the earthquake.