Türkiye sees flurry of arrests after twin quakes

GAZIANTEP/MALATYA, Türkiye

A number of arrests were made in Türkiye on Monday after two major earthquakes jolted southern Türkiye and western Syria last week.

Nazmi Tosun, the construction supervisor and technical representative of Emre Apartment, which was destroyed in Gaziantep province, was arrested in Istanbul on early Monday.

Malatya prosecutors also issued arrest warrants for 31 people on Monday over collapsed buildings in the city.

Police arrested Hasan Alpargun in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) after some buildings made by his construction company collapsed in the southern Adana province over the weekend, according to security forces.

Contractor Ibrahim Mustafa Uncuoglu was arrested in Istanbul after technical examination of the wreckage of an apartment building in the Gaziantep province found neglect.

Istanbul police arrested another contractor, Mehmet Ertan Akay, after his building collapsed during the quake in Gaziantep.

Prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Akay on charges of reckless manslaughter and building code violations.

Mehmet Yasar Coskun, the contractor of a large residential building in the hard-hit Hatay province, was also taken into custody on Saturday.

Earlier, security forces arrested Coskun at Istanbul Airport on his way to Montenegro while attempting to leave Türkiye.

Coskun claimed that he did not know why the building was destroyed, and that his flight to Montenegro had nothing to do with the collapsed building.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag on Wednesday vowed to take action against negligence after the deadly quakes.

Underlining that the priority now is to save people who are trapped under the rubble, Bozdag said: "After that, the judicial process will follow. All those who had negligence and fault will be held accountable."

At least 29,605 people were killed by the two massive earthquakes, the country's disaster agency said Sunday.

The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes, centered in Kahramanmaras province, affected more than 13 million people across 10 provinces, which also included Hatay, Gaziantep, Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa.

Several countries in the region, including Syria and Lebanon, felt the strong tremors that struck Türkiye in the space of less than 10 hours.