ISTANBUL, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- The mayor of Istanbul, Türkiye's most populous city, on Thursday called for establishing a specialized council to beef up the megacity's earthquake preparedness.
Ekrem Imamoglu made the remarks at a press conference about Istanbul's efforts to build earthquake resilience as the anniversary of the country's deadliest earthquake, which took place on Feb. 6, 2023, approaches.
"A wide scale of cooperation is required between local and central governments with the involvement of financial institutions, industry representatives, and civil society organizations," he told reporters.
The mayor believed that the council could mobilize cross-sector efforts to increase the efficiency of decision-making, financing, and project design.
As many as 200,000 risky buildings in Istanbul, which house some 3 million citizens, are pending at least repairs before a possible major earthquake renders them uninhabitable, Imamoglu said.
The municipal government has evacuated and demolished 1,556 buildings so far, and faster actions should be taken to complete the project as expected, he added.
Two powerful tremors devastated a wide range of areas in the south of the country last February, killing more than 50,000 people and displacing millions.
Soon after this disaster, Imamoglu launched a broad survey on the city's building quality, with those deemed weak to be reinforced or demolished.
With more than 16 million inhabitants, Istanbul has 1.2 million buildings in total, according to the municipality.
The city is located at the western end of the North Anatolian Fault Line, which has caused many major earthquakes in the past. ■
