Survey: 80 percent of people not prepared for earthquake in İstanbul

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A large majority of İstanbul's residents are not prepared for the major earthquake expected in the city, according to a new survey by the KONDA polling company.

About 80 percent of the people in all segments of the population said they were not prepared for an earthquake, says the survey report.

While the preparedness rate for "traditional conservatives," "religious conservatives" and "modern" people are similar, conservatives talk about spiritual preparedness and modern people talk about technical preparedness, according to the survey.

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Eighty-one percent of the respondents said they didn't get their building checked for earthquake resistance and 89 percent said they didn't have a "family disaster plan," according to the survey.

Among those who had their buildings checked, 86 percent said the buildings were strong while 10 percent said they were unsound.

One-third of those who didn't get their buildings checked said they thought their buildings were sound, 39 percent said they didn't know if their buildings were sound and 28 percent said their buildings were unsound.

While the rate of those who have a family disaster plan among those who define themselves as "modern" people is higher than others, it is only 14 percent, notes the report.

Also, those who have a university degree are more likely to have a family plan than others but it is no higher than 15 percent.

"It would not be wrong to say that the İzmir earthquake has changed the perspective of the public. In 2019, 14 percent of the people said that the most effective method against earthquakes was to turn to religion while this rate decreased to 7 percent in 2020," the report also notes.

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A major earthquake is considered to be imminent in İstanbul, a city of 16 million people.

According to an estimate by the municipality and Boğaziçi University's Kandilli Observatory published in late June, at least 14,000 people would be killed and more than 8,750 would be heavily injured in case of an earthquake higher than magnitude 7.0 in the city.

The last earthquake of that scale occurred in İstanbul in 1766 and experts think that another one is imminent.

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the city in September 2019 left more than 460 buildings, including schools and hospitals, damaged. (AÖ/VK)