Turkey investigates construction companies after earthquake

ISTANBUL, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Turkey will expand the investigation into construction contractors suspected of breaking safety rules following the devastating earthquake, the interior minister said, as the country is stepping up its accommodation plans for the victims.

Suleyman Soylu said 564 suspects have been identified so far, 160 of whom have been officially detained and many more are still under investigation.

“Our cities will be built in the right places, our children will live in stronger cities. We know what kind of test we are facing and we will come out stronger,” Haber told state broadcaster TRT.

President Tayyip Erdogan has promised to rebuild the houses within a year.

Erdogan, in power for two decades, faces an election in four months. Even before the quake, opinion polls showed it was under pressure from a cost of living crisis that could worsen as the disaster disrupted agricultural production.

Soylu said some 313,000 tents had been erected and 100,000 container houses were to be set up in the earthquake zone.

Turkey’s death toll from this month’s devastating earthquakes rose to 43,556, Soylu reported overnight.

Soylu said there were 7,930 aftershocks after the first quake on Feb. 6, and more than 600,000 apartments and 150,000 commercial premises suffered at least moderate damage.

Turkey on Wednesday launched a temporary wage support plan and banned layoffs in 10 cities to protect workers and businesses from the financial impact of the powerful earthquake that hit the south of the country.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6 left hundreds of thousands of buildings damaged or destroyed, and millions of people left homeless.

Some 865,000 people are living in tents and 23,500 in shipping containers, while 376,000 have moved to student residences and public boarding houses outside the quake zone, Erdogan said on Tuesday.

(Writing: Michael Georgy; Spanish edition by Flora Gómez)