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Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

economist.com

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Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#261

Post by notch898a »

MisterTea wrote: post #243
notch898a wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were the people living in that house so greedy that they cheeped out on buying/renting housing? There is soundly built housing in Turkey. If they were rich enough to buy sturdier housing then they could have done that. I'm not pointing this out to blame those people in any way, but it may be legitimately they can't afford better housing and this is the best they could do and the risk of dying in an earthquake was…

> Why were the people living in that house so greedy that they cheeped out on buying/renting housing? Can you please point out in the article where it states these occupants knowingly purchased/rented a structurally compromised home? Because the article I read does not state this. Don't say foolish things before reading the article.

That they purchased/rented a structurally compromised home is self-evident from the news articles showing the post-earthquake rubble. They certainly may have not known it was compromised (never claimed they did), but they sure as hell didn't know it was sound (probably because they either could not afford reputable inspection or even if they could didn't have the money to afford sound housing.)

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#262

Post by mrguyorama »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #134
mabbo wrote: post #10

My wife has worked in the 'enforcing building codes' sector of engineering for her entire career. And it's so frustrating to watch. Everyone - everyone - is certain that the codes are all overzealous and their little thing needs an exception. Politicians get elected promising to 'get rid of the red tape'. And then an event occurs and we learn why these building codes exist. Like workplace safety rules, they are writt…

>It's so frustrating. You know what's frustrating? Seeing someone who's clearly got enough exposure to building code and similar types of workplace requirements to know they're being misleading do it anyway because they know it's what the audience wants to hear. A huge fraction of code is not written in blood. A huge fraction of those exception requests are legitimate from a "performance of the thing in question" sys…

My very blue collar brother in law became a code enforcement employee for his rich as fuck town for a while. The ONLY people who bitch about building codes are the ones who are CLEARLY out of compliance with code, have been for decades, and have been getting a pass due to nepotism previously, and then they have the time and spite to go to town office meetings and publicly bitch about their previous privileged status and wanting to keep that stupid level of privilege. Everyone else is mostly in compliance, trying to keep compliant, and will definitely get a pass from an enforcement official because it's clearly not a problem. If you don't act like a dick, you will almost always get a pass if it's not a clear violation that probably would fuck someone over in the future.

My father is a completely self taught and self employed contractor for the exact same area. Code compliance is so clear, simple, and easy that he considers it a rubber stamp process and has never complained about it, while he happily complains about spending $400 a year to keep his business properly licensed in the state, while he refuses to increase his prices to keep up with the gouging local contractors are able to do because of extremely high demand.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#264

Post by mrguyorama »

commandlinefan wrote: post #75
r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not because of building codes. That's because of people who don't believe in helping their fellow man through, oh I don't know, paying taxes, supporting the welfare state, paying living wages etc.

> don't believe in helping their fellow man Well, ok, since you started it - how much do you, personally, donate to homeless shelters and food banks? You have a lot of discretionary income to do so since your taxes are lower than you appear that you would like them to be.

I should not have to donate a single penny to a charity to end homelessness. The US is a rich as fuck country, and has every ability to end poverty, up to and including increasing taxes for well off people like me.

Am I really supposed to believe that we could build an entire cargo ship every 3 days out of 18 shipyards in 1942, but we somehow can't build a million simple and dirt cheap homes?

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#265

Post by mrguyorama »

mschuster91 wrote: post #12
jl6 wrote: post #7

It’s not surprising at all that the lack of accountability goes right to the top, and it’s tragic that it takes an earthquake to expose the corruption. But Turkey is far from the only country with a corrupt, ticking-time-bomb of construction and infrastructure quality issues. Pretty much every low-to-middle income country has taken the semi-rational approach of cutting corners in order to do more with less. And the h…

> Pretty much every low-to-middle income country has taken the semi-rational approach of cutting corners in order to do more with less. For what it's worth, the "developed" Western countries have done just the same. Look at the fellow front page article about the train catastrophe in East Palestine or how virtually all companies got hit hard by supply chain interruptions - no matter if from Covid, the Ever Given or E…

I hate how people seem to act like a country of 350 million people and 20 trillion in GDP somehow can't afford a 10% safety factor on literally every single thing. How much money do we overwork ourselves to funnel into just a few owner's pockets, and they STILL bristle at the idea of giving the rest of us a minimum viable standard of living, as if having $100 billion spare is just not enough of a safety blanket.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#266

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

shadowpho wrote: post #45
mschuster91 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like workplace safety rules, they are written in the blood of the dead. Or fire codes. Related off-topic reminder, in the hope it may save one life one day: please use this comment as a reminder to check upon the status of your smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms and fire extinguisher. At the very least every room where people sleep in should have a smoke alarm and every room with a furnace (boiler, oven, kitchen,…

> Fire extinguishers should be inspected by a licensed professional every two years Really? Do you know _anyone_ who does that? What will the professional do that we don't -- take a look at the charge level, take a look at manufacturer date?

In Austria the local fire departments announce a day where you can check them and in some places they come buy once a year. In our multi unit building the building management does it.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#267

Post by davidf18 »

andrepd wrote: post #251
notlukesky wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building companies are close to the government everywhere. Try getting permits without access to the city council or mayor. Turkey is a major faultline (and most of the northern Mediterranean) and seems to constantly have earthquakes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Turkey In the same area of the earthquakes now (the size of the UK) there was an earthquake in 115 AD that killed 260 thousand peopl…

> Try getting permits without access to the city council or mayor It's depressing/comforting to know that my town is not unique in this regard. I have the impression that local power is always more corrupt than central/national power. Less scrutiny and more opportunity for doing dirt without getting caught.

[dead]

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#268

Post by mikeponders »

amai wrote: post #263

Thank god Turkey doesn’t have nuclear power plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_earthquake_vulne...

They actually have the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant but I think it is not completed yet. However it was very close to the areas affected.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#269

Post by duckmysick »

notch898a wrote: post #29
mabbo wrote: post #10

My wife has worked in the 'enforcing building codes' sector of engineering for her entire career. And it's so frustrating to watch. Everyone - everyone - is certain that the codes are all overzealous and their little thing needs an exception. Politicians get elected promising to 'get rid of the red tape'. And then an event occurs and we learn why these building codes exist. Like workplace safety rules, they are writt…

[flagged]

A lot of people in Turkey became homeless (and dead) partially because of lax building procedures driving the cost down.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#270

Post by conanbatt »

Waterluvian wrote: post #22
conanbatt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cuts both ways. What about the homeless person dying in the cold because he can't afford shelter due to sky high building requirements - is that included in the building code enforcement rules?

I don't think I've seen a case where the local government wants to build more housing but, gosh, they're just too expensive. It's usually NIMBYism or just general disinterest in a "non-sexy" political issue.

Government does not build housing at all.
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