Building collapses in Istanbul

No casualties were reported after a five-story residential building collapsed on the morning hours of Thursday May 6th 2021, in Istanbul’s Zeytinburnu district. The residents had the opportunity to evacuate the building after sounds of “cracks” emerged earlier in the day.

Search and rescue teams were promptly deployed to the site. Fortunately, a much more severe catastrophe was averted since a nearby, typically busy, open-air marketplace was closed due to an ongoing COVID-19 lockdown. According to the Istanbul Governorate the building was constructed in 1995 and had no building permit.

Özkan Şener, owner of a bicycle shop on the first floor of the building, told Demirören News Agency (DHA) that it was him who notified the 20 people present within the building about an imminent collapse. Şener stated that he started hearing cracks and also noticed cracks on the exterior walls.

The collapse has renewed concerns over building safety in the earthquake-prone city of Istanbul. Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul, characteristically stated while visiting the site of the collapsed building, “This is Istanbul’s most critical problem. There are nearly 200,000 risky buildings in the city and they need to be transformed. We hope we find a solution to this problem before something (more) serious happens”.

Recently, in February 2019, twenty-one people were killed when aneight-story building collapsed in Maltepe district, an eastern suburb of Istanbul.