With a gym, swimming pool and underground garage, the developers portrayed the new complex, called the Rönesans residence, as a “piece of paradise” when it was announced for sale in 2013. They also promised solid quality, which was crucial to secondary school teacher Sevtap Karaabduloglu. She took out a loan and bought one of the 249 apartments in the 12-storey building, which until Monday last week was an attractive location. The block of flats before and now. Screenshot from Facebook Photo: Screenshot Sevtap Karaabduloglu had experienced earthquakes before in Van. At the time, the apartment she rented was completely destroyed, and she had to live in temporary accommodation for months. – She therefore chose the apartment carefully, and read all the reports about the building. The fact that the authorities had approved it as safe made the difference, says her cousin, Enes Duru, from Hatay. He usually lives in Istanbul, but has traveled to the city on the border with Syria to search for her. The Rönesans residence was announced as a “little piece of paradise” when it was completed in 2013 Brothers arrested The two brothers behind the building project are among several builders arrested after the earthquake leveled thousands of buildings. They were arrested at the airport on their way to Montenegro with large sums of money on them. Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Sunday that they have issued 113 arrest warrants for people they believe are behind construction fraud. The arrests are understood as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan trying to address growing criticism of lax enforcement of building regulations. Both seismologists and engineers have warned for years that many new buildings do not meet the legal standard. Builders are said to have received dispensations especially before elections, and housing complexes have been left standing even if they do not meet the requirements, says the chairman of the trade union of engineers and urban planners in Istanbul, Pelin Pinar Giritlioglu to the BBC. According to Pinar, dispensation has been granted to almost 75,000 buildings in the earthquake-affected areas despite the fact that during inspection it has been discovered that they do not comply with current building and earthquake regulations. They only need to pay a fine. One of these dispensations was granted to the Rönesans residence, where Sevtap moved into. According to the Turkish newspaper Dunya, it was allegedly built on a flexible foundation, which should enable the building to move with the tremors during an earthquake. That made the home attractive to newcomers, such as Sevtap Karaabduloglu, who moved there almost two years ago to work as a special education teacher. – We want an answer to how it was possible to approve this construction, says the cousin. Now the whole family is waiting for answers, but they no longer have any hope of finding her alive. – We wait here until they have taken her out so that we can arrange a funeral, says Duru.
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