Murat Kurum defends mobile operators: 'When 16 million people talk on the phone at the same time, the system cannot handle it'
Following the 6.2 magnitude earthquake centered in Silivri, mobile operators faced public criticism due to disruptions in communication lines. They were first defended by Minister of Transport Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, and subsequently by Minister of Environment Murat Kurum. Stating that there was a "serious density" in the communication system, Kurum remarked, "When 16 million people talk on the phone at the same time, the system cannot handle it. We did not experience a major problem."
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The 6.2 magnitude earthquake that occurred off the coast of the Sea of Marmara, in a region close to Silivri, caused widespread panic across Istanbul and the Marmara Region, while the city's infrastructure systems proved significantly inadequate. In the chaos that followed the earthquake, traffic came to a standstill, citizens struggled to communicate, and the insufficiency of emergency assembly areas was once again brought to the agenda.
As public reaction to the communication outages grew, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu made the following statement after his meetings with the operators:
"There was a 7 to 10-fold increase in calls after the earthquake; mobile operators handled 75 percent of the calls made. Unfortunately, we could not handle the remaining 25 percent."
MINISTER KURUM ALSO DEFENDS OPERATORS: "WHEN 16 MILLION LOAD THE SYSTEM..."
Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Murat Kurum made statements regarding the issue during a program he attended on the tv100 channel. In his assessment of the public's reaction, Kurum said, "When 16 million people talk on the phone at the same time, the system inevitably cannot handle it. Thank God we did not experience a major problem."
LATEST STATUS ON DAMAGE REPORTS
Sharing information regarding the damage reports received from buildings following the earthquake, Kurum stated that they had received reports for a total of 6,539 buildings. The Minister used the following expressions:
"Of these buildings, 1,473 were determined to be undamaged and 101 were found to have minor damage. The highest number of reports are coming from Bahçelievler, Esenler, Bağcılar, Zeytinburnu, Avcılar, and Küçükçekmece."
"When we look at the distribution of damage reports, this picture emerges. Looking at the percentage of damage reports, 80 percent are coming from the European Side."
NEW SOCIAL HOUSING FOR ISTANBUL
Continuing his statements on the general condition of structures in Istanbul and urban transformation projects, Minister Kurum emphasized that risky buildings in the city must be transformed and shared his new plans regarding social housing:
"Healthy housing must be built to combat earthquakes. Since 2002, we have built 1.5 million homes with TOKİ for this purpose. We did this for our low-income citizens. We built 125,000 of these in Istanbul."
"At the end of the year, there will be a new social housing campaign covering all 81 provinces. We will offer these opportunities to our citizens. We had also promised 1,000 homes in Istanbul as part of the 250,000-home campaign, and its construction is still ongoing."
"Currently, the construction of 44,000 homes is underway in Istanbul. As in all of Turkey, we will build rental housing in Istanbul, and we will be announcing the good news of social housing projects to our citizens at the end of the year."