Editorial
Turkish Stuffed Pancakes
Seetao 2023-02-14 08:55
  • According to the latest statistics, the strong earthquake in southern Turkey has killed nearly 30,000 people
  • The earthquake caused the collapse of more than 20,000 residential buildings, and the quality of residential buildings has been questioned by all walks of life
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The energy released by the Turkish earthquake is far beyond imagination. A senior Turkish earthquake expert said that the energy released by the earthquake is equivalent to 130 atomic bombs exploding at the same time, and it was a super atomic bomb that lasted 43 seconds, and this only happened on February 6, 2023 7.8 quake, excluding another 7.8 quake and 6.7 quake. Strong earthquakes even cause plates to shift. Carlo Doglioni, director of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, recently wrote that the earthquake caused the Arabian plate to shift more than 3 meters relative to the Anatolian plate, the former in Syria and the latter in Turkey .

In stark contrast, the Hunutlu power plant built by China was basically undamaged in the earthquake, and its power generation facilities are still operating normally, while two nearby Turkish power plants were forced to shut down due to the collapse of the plant and damaged equipment. Under such circumstances, the surrounding medical treatment, rescue, and residential electricity all depend on the Hunutlu Power Plant. The Chinese staff worked overtime and continued to work to ensure the continuous power supply of the power plant, and made great contributions to Turkey's post-earthquake rescue work. By the way, the location of the Hunutlu power plant is not far away from the earthquake area as some foreign media said. On the contrary, it is less than 90 kilometers away from the epicenter, which belongs to a typical earthquake center.

Turkish Stuffed Pancakes

The earthquake caused at least 6,000 buildings to collapse. The data from the World Health Organization has high credibility. It is controversial that the Turkish buildings collapsed in such a way that there are pieces of ruins everywhere. After the earthquake in other countries, there are still many building structures that have been severely damaged, but still have a frame support. On February 9, more than 100 members of the Blue Sky Rescue Team from China arrived in Malatya, Turkey's earthquake-stricken city, and were immediately shocked by the scene in front of them: more than 200 buildings collapsed in a stacked manner, because the upper floor may be to the left when it collapses However, the next floor may be offset to the right, and the floors are seriously misaligned. Due to excessive pressure, the buildings on the bottom floors are crushed into gravel, rotten bricks and other trivial garbage. dust! What caused Turkey to collapse like arhats and pies during the earthquake? Substandard construction quality is one of the important reasons.

Turkey didn't even have a decent mandatory building code before 2018. In order to reduce construction costs, developers and contractors like to use concrete bricks, and rarely use steel for reinforcement tasks. Even when using rebar, builders prefer unribbed steel, which is not as strong as ribbed steel, but is cheaper, and the money saved goes to the builder's profit. Marty Levy, a structural engineer in New York, analyzed the photos of the collapsed building in Turkey and said bluntly: From the perspective of color and shape, the building frame is basically made of bricks. These materials do not have the ability to resist earthquakes. The collapse is normal. Collapse is a strange thing. The Turkish ministry in charge of engineering and construction admitted in 2018 that more than half of Turkey's buildings were substandard. The real situation is even worse than the announcement. Gaziantep is the largest city in southern Turkey. The survey found that less than 11% of the 110,000 registered buildings in the local area really meet the general requirements.

Many small apartments on the 5th to 6th floors can be designed and constructed by the contractor with the workers without any approval and design planning. If there are technical problems in the construction process, the contractor can solve them by himself. As for the reliability, there is no question. people asked. After the media exposure, the local government did not punish these construction companies, but only made them pay a large fine. So strange things happened in the Turkish earthquake. Gaziantep Castle, which has gone through thousands of years, only collapsed in large areas on the east, south, and southeast sides, while the new buildings in recent decades have been reduced to ruins one by one.

Hunutlu coal-fired power plant stands strong

The Hunutlu coal-fired power plant in Yumurtalek City, Adana Province, Turkey, is close to the Mediterranean Sea. The power plant is a key construction project in the Belt and Road Initiative initiated by China, with a total investment of about 1.7 billion US dollars. It is a Chinese enterprise in Turkey. Biggest investment. Objectively speaking, the geographical environment of the Hunutlu coal-fired power plant is not very good. Medium-hard soil and soft rock are the main components of the soil layer, and the surrounding area is dominated by low mountains and hills. The terrain has large fluctuations, with a drop of up to 80 meters. The biggest unfavorable condition is that the site is located in the first earthquake zone in Turkey, the seismic acceleration value is 0.40g, and the seismic fortification intensity of the building has reached 9 degrees. According to my country's building regulations, the seismic fortification intensity reaches 6 degrees, and seismic fortification must be carried out, even if the building is located in Turkey. Therefore, the East China Electric Power Design Institute, the design unit, and China Energy Construction Group, the construction unit, considered the earthquake-proof problem before the project started. The main factory building and the supply boiler room are all steel structures, using a total of 30,000 tons of steel. The strong steel structure undoubtedly played an important role in this earthquake resistance.

In order to achieve excellent earthquake resistance, Chinese design and construction units have made great efforts. Turkey lacks a series of reliable and enforceable standards in the field of construction, and China needs to make necessary and reasonable explanations to Turkish engineers during design and construction. The whole process is extremely troublesome and boring. Of course, the ability of Chinese companies to build such high-quality projects in Turkey and ensure the normal operation of power plants after the earthquake is related to the rich experience accumulated by Chinese infrastructure companies in China. Of course, it is also inseparable from the frequent construction of large projects and large Advanced understanding absorbed by engineering.

China's Sichuan-built Turkish bridge unharmed in earthquake

Although the strong earthquake caused serious damage to various buildings, a bridge built in Sichuan has withstood the test of the earthquake. It is reported that the 1915 Canakkale Bridge, located in Canakkale Province in western Turkey, will be opened to traffic in March 2022, crossing the Dardanelles, connecting Gripolu on the European coast and Lapski on the Asian coast. With a length of 2023 meters, it is the largest span suspension bridge in the world.

It shortens the sea-crossing journey that originally required a one-hour ferry ride to only six minutes, saving Turkey about 415 million euros, or about 3 billion yuan, every year. Thanks to the high-level earthquake-resistant design and excellent construction technology, the bridge has withstood the test of continuous earthquakes. At present, the bridge body is safe and the traffic is normal. Most of Turkey's territory is located on the seismic zone, mainly including the North Anatolia Fault Zone and the East Anatolia Fault Zone, which have been prone to earthquakes. As the only Chinese-funded construction enterprise, Sichuan Road Bridge, a subsidiary of Shudao Group, has fully considered the impact of earthquakes in its design, and its seismic rating is 10. Sichuan Road and Bridge undertook the installation of all steel box girders, and completed 87 pieces of steel box girders with a total length of 3,563 meters and a total weight of about 58,100 tons. The team strictly implements the process requirements, ensures the quality of the project, and escorts the structural safety of the bridge, so that the Sichuan Bridge made in China can withstand various tests.

Turkish prosecutors issue 134 arrest warrants

Turkish Justice Minister Bozda said on the evening of February 12 that the Turkish Prosecutor's Office issued 134 arrest warrants on the same day to arrest contractors and engineers who were directly responsible for the poor-quality buildings in the earthquake zone. Bozda said that according to the instructions of the Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor's Office set up earthquake crime investigation bureaus in the 10 provinces affected by the earthquake to thoroughly investigate the collapse of a large number of buildings during the earthquake. At present, the Turkish police have arrested at least 12 relevant responsible persons.

It is understood that in 1999, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake occurred in Istanbul, Turkey, killing about 18,000 people. The current Turkish building code is a product of the 1999 earthquake. Still, Turkish residents allege that building codes following the 1999 earthquake were often not applied and that contractors cut corners, including adding concrete to concrete and wrapping pillars with cheaper metal strips, which could earn contractors more profit. Editor/He Yuting

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