Thousands still face risk of cancer due to asbestos released from rubble of Feb. 6 quakes in Turkey

Adıyaman Mayor Tutdere has warned that 300,000 people were still facing the risk of getting cancer due to the asbestos released from the buildings collapsed in the Feb. 6, 2023 major earthquakes in southeast Turkey.

Thursday December 19 2024 06:16 pm

Bahri Uçar / DUVAR

Adıyaman Mayor Abdurrahman Tutdere, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has warned of the ongoing environmental problems in the aftermath of the Feb. 6, 2023 major earthquakes that shook Turkey’s southeast.

Speaking during the 6th International Resilience Congress, Tutdere said the collapsed buildings were mostly built before 2010, which suggests that asbestos might have been used in most of their constructions.

Tutdere said 300,000 people might get cancer in the upcoming years due to asbestos released from the rubble of collapsed buildings.

“After the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers in the US, the Americans analyzed the amount of asbestos emitted by the collapsed buildings and calculated the number of disease cases in the region. We applied a similar method to the provinces affected by the February 6 earthquakes. In our calculations based on a total of 350 million tons of asbestos released after the earthquake, we found that 300,000 to 400,000 people in the region are likely to get various types of asbestos-related cancers, especially peritoneal and lung cancer, in the next 10 years,” he said.

“According to official figures, we lost more than 50,000 people in the earthquake, but the diseases caused by asbestos will create a long-term and heavy burden on both the health system and the economy,” he added.

Tutdere said 20 million tons of rubble was produced in Adıyaman and approximately 130 million tons in the 11 provinces affected by the earthquake, and that some calculations suggest that this amount could be between 350 and 580 million tons.

“Failure to properly manage this massive waste could lead to serious environmental and health problems in the future,” he warned.

He also stated that the municipalities could not bear the burden of handling the rubble alone, and demanded more help from the Environment and Urbanization Ministry.

Turkey’s southeastern region was struck by two major earthquakes on Feb. 6, 2023, one at a magnitude of 7.7 and the other at 7.6, and more than 50,000 people died according to the official figures.

The quakes affected 11 provinces in the region.

(English version by Alperen Şen)