Not the disaster of the century, but the negligence of the century!

In Turkey, when the calendar turned to February 6, 2023, time stood still before dawn. The ground shook suddenly; the Kahramanmaraş-centered earthquake destroyed not only buildings but also the society's sense of security. This massive disaster, which deeply affected 11 provinces, turned the lives of 14 million people upside down; it left a heavy social toll with more than 53 thousand lives lost and over 107 thousand injured. Those who remained behind left their homes and migrated.

Although this heavy toll is frequently called the 'disaster of the century,' it reveals a structural and systemic breakdown that is too deep to be explained merely by technical or administrative failure. The tragedy experienced should not be evaluated solely as a seismic-tectonic event; it should also be read as a situation that requires reflection on Turkey's administrative-institutional capacity and understanding of responsibility.

Despite the time that has passed, the fundamental question we must still ask is this: Is the event we are facing truly a 'natural disaster,' or is it a visible result of administrative, social, and moral weaknesses that have accumulated over many years? From Erzincan to Gölcük, from Van to İzmir, this geography screams one thing to us: In these lands, an earthquake is not an exception, but a real and structural reality. However, despite this historical experience, a defense mechanism wrapped in confusion and a discourse of 'fate' is activated with every earthquake, as if we are encountering it for the first time. Yet, fault lines are natural; but the kind of city you build on those faults is entirely a matter of political choice.

When Ulrich Beck introduced the concept of the 'Risk Society,' he stated that the dangers of the modern world are no longer 'fate,' but results produced by human hands. The February 6 earthquake was the most painful confirmation of this thesis in Turkey. The destruction we experienced was not just the wreckage of the earth's crust; it was the wreckage of decades of unplanned urbanization, zoning amnesties distributed through political choices, and cities managed with a 'good enough' mentality. Thus, the earthquake ceased to be a surprise of nature; it became the inevitable bill for social inequalities.

Perhaps those who described this best were novelists, even before social scientists. In Yaşar Kemal's world, nature is harsh, but it is the order that kills and leaves people defenseless. In Orhan Kemal's slums, disaster does not appear overnight; it accumulates by seeping into poverty. Today, the picture is no different. As David Harvey said, while cities turn into areas where capital buries its crises; as Mike Davis warned, the poor were placed right in the middle of these crises, in the most fragile buildings. Who survived and who remained under the rubble depended not on the justice of nature, but on class and spatial choices.

In Turkey, earthquake risk has long been handled with zoning amnesties and short-term practices instead of holistic planning based on scientific principles; the structural results created by this approach are producing an increasingly heavier social cost. Metropolises with high earthquake risk, such as Istanbul and İzmir, do not yet appear to have sufficiently internalized the lessons revealed by the February 6, 2023 earthquakes at an institutional and administrative level. The polarization and political tensions between the central government and local administrations in our country complicate and delay urban transformation processes from an administrative perspective; this situation makes urban vulnerabilities and existing structural weaknesses even more visible.

The waiting practices that emerged in the wreckage areas after the February 6 earthquakes showed that the disaster points to a multi-dimensional governance crisis that is not limited to physical destruction. The voices coming from the rubble, beyond individual rescue expectations, can be evaluated as empirical indicators that make the thresholds of public intervention capacity, the functioning of institutional coordination, and structural flaws in disaster management visible. In this respect, the disaster experience offers a critical cross-section where the state's preparation, intervention, and organization processes are tested simultaneously.

In Turkey, earthquake risk is no longer a possibility, but a reality we can encounter at any moment. But at the point we have reached, failing to produce a holistic, science-based, and coordinated public policy is not just a technical deficiency; it is also a situation where social trust, public responsibility, and administrative capacity are tested. Japan's 'risk-focused continuous management' approach shows that the right steps can be taken not only with technical capacity, but with an understanding that has legal and financial binding power and strengthens social trust.

Our cities' "Earthquake Master Plans" must stop being documents waiting on academic shelves. Independent of the political conjuncture, these plans must be updated and transformed into an applicable and auditable framework. Urban resilience is not an election promise; it is an unavoidable public responsibility that protects the right to life.

In this context, February 6 should be seen as a turning point. Making our cities more resilient, putting scientific data ahead of politics, and ensuring spatial justice makes it possible to protect not only buildings but also social trust. What needs to be done today is not to mourn after the disaster; it should be to plan the future, foresee risks, and take responsibility. Nature continues on its own course, but the consequences of negligence can be reduced with preventable steps; provided that we can apply the lessons correctly.