A
severe earthquake occurred on 17 August 1999 at 3:01 a.m. local time in
northwestern Turkey in very close location to Istanbul where almost
15 million people live. The shock had a moment magnitude of
7.6 and a maximum Mercalli
Intensity of
IX (Violent). The event lasted for 37 seconds, killing around 17,000
people (but many sources suggest the actual figure
may have been closer to 45,000 dead) and left approximately
half a million people homeless. The nearby city of Izmit was also very badly damaged. The earthquake
sparked a disastrous fire at nearby refinerıes. The earthquake caused a tsunami in the Sea of Marmara that was about 2.5 meters high. The estimated amount of
damage is equivalent to 23 billion dollars. At the time I was living in
Istanbul and in one of the most damaged part of it called Avcilar. I still
remember that night as if it happened last night. I remember how all my family
members’ was screaming and trying to go outside and that strong and horrible
sound coming from ground. It was shaking so strong that everything in the house
was falling over and it was very hard to walk. When we managed to go out of the
building and got over the first shock, I saw the buildings next to ours and
others around us collapsed. I cannot explain how terrible that feeling.
This earthquake
showed us our vulnerability. But it also showed us that how our government were
ineffective and unprepared such events. They were so helpless that they even
couldn’t reach most of the affected areas on the third day. No one knew what to
do, where the rescue teams should deploy, where emergency supplies could be
found, where were field hospitals etc. Local offıcials lost communıcatıon
between themselves. There were only rumors about what was happening. It was a
total chaos and panic. “Nerede bu devlet” became a popular phrase which means
“Where is our government”. Those were all I remembered immediately when we
talked about social media role in emergency management at the class and Commonwealth
Edison case. I couldn’t help thinking about what if we have well designed
emergency management and we could have used social media tools in those days.
Of course earthquake was an inevitable natural event but we could have minimize
negative aftermath effects. We could have coordinated official, volunteers,
understand dimension of disaster in a very short time and so on.
So many deaths caused by lack of coordination, lack of information could have been averted. This helped me realize that social media tools are not just some fancy things to enjoy. They can really touch our lives in very unexpected ways. A new agency “The Prime Ministry Disaster & Emergency Management Authority” was founded to coordinate efforts. But unfortunately they still don’t have a social media element in their plans. I reached a friend of mine working there and talked about what I’ve learned here. He promised me to share them with his superiors. I hope this class will change something in a place where the need is obvious.
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