'Not protected': Concern of 'Huge One' grips Turkey after lethal quake | World Information
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The helmet-topped engineer drove his pointy instrument into the concrete to check whether or not Durmus Uygun's constructing will crumble when the dreaded huge quake lastly strikes Istanbul.
"I am fairly assured however my youngsters aren't satisfied, so we're having this check achieved," mentioned Uygun, who lives in one of many Turkish megalopolis's poorer and extra densely packed neighbourhoods.
"If the result's good, we'll dwell in peace. However who is aware of the place we will probably be when the earthquake hits? We could also be on the grocery store or at work -- that is what scares us."
In his fifties and carrying a black beret, Uygun is way from the one one residing in worry in Istanbul.
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Turkey's cultural and financial capital is residence to as much as 20 million individuals, many nonetheless haunted by reminiscences of the final "Huge One" that struck simply east of the town in 1999. Greater than 17,000 individuals died, together with 1,000 in Istanbul.
Town has grown considerably since then, changing into a magnet for individuals attracted by its booming financial system -- and oblivious to the lively fault line working alongside its southern edge.
That modified on February 6, when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed greater than 48,000 in southeastern Turkey and almost 6,000 over the border in Syria, leaving whole cities in ruins.
A state of collective psychosis has since gripped Istanbulites, who've requested greater than 140,000 checks of the kind being performed on Uygun's condo constructing.
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