Erdoğan pledges to preserve fabric of quake-hit historical provinces

Türkiye's president on Monday promised not to allow major changes to the fabric of the country's southern regions amid efforts to rebuild from the devastation caused by twin earthquakes earlier this month. 'We cannot ignore structural changes to our (quake-hit) cities, where we've been living in brotherhood and which have been home to civilizations for thousands of years,' Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a press briefing on a visit to Adiyaman, one of the provinces badly hit by the earthquakes. Calling on local residents, Erdoğan said: 'Protect your city. Never permanently abandon your motherland. We will provide you with better, more beautiful, safer, newer homes for everyone that collapsed.' Erdoğan on Monday asked for the blessing of earthquake victims over rescue delays while visiting the southern province of Adıyaman, one of the areas hit hardest by the deadly earthquake earlier this month. 'Due to the devastating effect of the tremors and the bad weather, we were not able to work the way we wanted in Adıyaman for the first few days. I apologise for this,' he said. Pledging that his government will take the necessary steps to prepare cities for future disasters, Erdoğan said construction would not be allowed in areas near fault lines or prone to soil liquefaction during earthquakes. He also ruled out high-rise buildings in old settlements. Repeating his promise to mend the damage caused by the earthquakes within the span of a year, he said: 'We will do whatever it takes to prepare our cities for disasters, starting from speeding up urban transformation projects as soon as possible.' Erdoğan noted that the government was 'doing whatever is necessary,' with soil surveys already complete at sites where a total of 309,000 new homes are to be built and construction ready to begin. 'We will construct nearly 50,000 homes in Adıyaman. We will start to break ground and construct where micro zonation and geological survey have been finalized,' he said. At least 44,374 people have died due to those back-to-back earthquakes of magnitude 7.7 and 7.6. Their epicenter was in Kahramanmaraş province, Malatya's southwestern neighbor, and struck nine other Turkish provinces -- Adana, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kilis, Osmaniye, and Şanlıurfa. More than 13 million people have been affected by the devastating quakes.