The 1999 and 2023 earthquakes: society, institutions and rebuilding lives

1999: two shocks, from Marmara to Düzce

The Düzce Governorate's commemorative record describes how the Eastern Marmara earthquake of 17 August 1999 and the Düzce earthquake of 12 November struck the same province in succession. Its figure of 980 deaths concerns both events in Düzce, not all losses across Marmara or Türkiye.

The time of 03:02 on 17 August became a shared marker in later commemorations. An Afyonkarahisar AFAD record documents a 2020 anniversary exercise that dispatched search-and-rescue teams at that hour. Remembrance here involved rehearsing institutional readiness as well as making commemorative speeches.

Compressing the two earthquakes into one day erases the intervening months and lives disrupted again. This dossier treats the long aftermath as history too. Replacing a house and re-establishing a neighbourhood's daily routines are different questions, even when they appear under the same heading of reconstruction.

From reconstruction to risk reduction: MEER and ISMEP

The World Bank Independent Evaluation Group's report of 22 June 2018 connects the Marmara Earthquake Emergency Reconstruction project, MEER, with housing, infrastructure and insurance arrangements. Its successor approach in the Istanbul Seismic Risk Mitigation and Emergency Preparedness project, ISMEP, emphasised retrofitting or rebuilding public buildings and emergency capacity. Education and health facilities were important investment areas. The evaluation also found that replicating the Istanbul experience elsewhere had been limited.

These cases distinguish replacing a building from sustaining a service through a later emergency.

Insurance and coordination: answers to different needs

Düzce AFAD's DASK education notice, dated 17 April 2019, records the introduction of compulsory earthquake insurance on 27 September 2000 and the establishment of the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool within the post-1999 framework.

AFAD's institutional history explains that Law No. 5902 created the presidency in 2009, bringing together functions of the civil-defence, disaster-affairs and emergency-management general directorates. Initially attached to the prime minister's office, AFAD was attached to the Ministry of Interior under the regulation dated 15 July 2018. Establishment and a later change in administrative affiliation are distinct events.

Reading the Republic's institutions as a list of names misses their purposes. DASK's financial-risk focus and AFAD's coordination responsibilities operate on different levels of the same society's needs. The existence of an institution neither proves that every problem was resolved nor makes the distinction between those responsibilities disappear.

2023: the earthquake sequence and the response framework

An early AFAD bulletin records the magnitude-7.7 Pazarcık and magnitude-7.6 Elbistan earthquakes on 6 February 2023. It describes rescue participation by public agencies, fire services, civil society and volunteers, and transport by air and sea. Page-heading and body dates differ: this is an early situation bulletin, not a final account of losses.

The Türkiye Disaster Response Plan, TAMP, defines responsibilities and coordination. The first plan appeared in 2014; the updated plan entered into force on 15 September 2022. Its S1–S4 levels describe an expanding response scale, from local resources to support provinces, national capacity and international assistance when required. They are not measurements of earthquake magnitude.

A plan and its implementation are separate objects of historical inquiry. An organisational chart explains who should do what; it cannot establish, by itself, when a service reached a particular place. Understanding disaster history requires reading the design, operational records and the consequences experienced by people together.

Economic accounts: damage, losses and rebuilding are different

The World Bank's US$34.2 billion figure of 27 February 2023 was an early estimate of direct physical damage, not all economic losses or the cost of rebuilding. The announcement recognised continuing aftershocks and uncertainty. It is not a final total established in 2026 or the amount Türkiye spent.

This is not merely a statistical distinction. A workshop's building can be replaced while its customers and workforce return on a different timetable. Comparisons need to specify currency, report date, geographical scope and what is being measured. Treating two figures answering different questions as corrections of each other conceals which part of recovery they describe.

Buildings that survived, and access to education

The World Bank's schools feature of 7 June 2023 reports that all 24 earthquake-area schools among 57 built through a Ministry of National Education partnership since 2017 withstood the shocks. Four project schools in Kahramanmaraş also provided temporary shelter and services. This finding concerns that project group, not every school in the affected region.

UNICEF's January–March 2024 situation report records three prefabricated schools in Hatay, school rehabilitation, learning recovery and support for children. Life in container settlements, access to services and continuing displacement formed the context. These activities belong to that reporting period; they are not an exhaustive list of work completed today.

The research behind the May 2024 Education Sector Needs Overview covered 4,156 households. It identified transport, cost, relocation and language among factors shaping educational access. This sample was not a census of every child. The difference between reopening a building and enabling each pupil to attend regularly is an important measure of social recovery.

Work, migration and farming: the everyday economy of recovery

The ILO's local labour-market and skills-needs report, published on 28 August 2023, examines workers leaving the region alongside the labour demand created by reconstruction. Housing shortages, essential services and restored urban life are central to its discussion of workers' return. Its recommendations must not be confused with completed outcomes. Expanding construction does not demonstrate that every industry or household recovered at the same speed.

UNICEF's study of seasonal migratory agricultural workers draws on fieldwork conducted on 6–11 March 2023 in Adana, Hatay, Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa and Konya. Published in December 2023, it describes families entering agricultural tent settlements for the first time after the earthquakes and risks of children leaving education for work. These are findings from a particular field study, not a claim that all survivors followed the same way of life.

The same disaster can produce different income and settlement pathways for a salaried worker and a seasonal labourer. Social history therefore cannot be built from factory and housing counts alone. Access to work, caring responsibilities and children's continuing education help explain who can make a life within a reconstructed city.

Cultural heritage: from initial concern to specific assessment

UNESCO's statement of 7 February 2023 reported damage at the Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens property and the need to assess nearby heritage sites. Initial concern for Göbekli Tepe, Mount Nemrut and Arslantepe did not establish identical damage at all three. An early notification cannot replace a detailed assessment on site.

The Arslantepe section of UNESCO's 2023 state-of-conservation report provides a more specific record. February notifications described partial collapse of the temporary roof and shearing in adobe walls. The meeting of 27 April identified roof repair, protecting excavation slopes and repairing the damaged excavation house as urgent work. This list records needs at that time, not present visitor arrangements or proof that every intervention has been completed.

Protecting heritage is not simply about restoring tourism. Structures, excavation records and the memory of surrounding communities can be affected differently. Reading Arslantepe with the Atlas chapters on Malatya and heritage, and Diyarbakır with its walls and urban life, broadens the geographical context without placing culture outside disaster history.

Remembrance, visual evidence and historical responsibility

An Antalya AFAD record describes the nationwide exercise held at 18:57 on 12 November 2022, the anniversary of the Düzce earthquake, across 81 provinces. The Antalya event took place at a student residence and included an exhibition of rescue equipment. It is a concrete example of commemoration becoming an activity of public preparedness, not simply a look back.

This dossier's photograph was described by its photographer, Steelman, as the collapse of a reinforced-concrete building in Türkiye's 1999 earthquake. The Commons date of 26 September 2006 does not establish the precise day it was taken. It is not presented as a 2023 photograph or assigned to an unidentified neighbourhood. The linked AFAD video is likewise an institutional reconstruction account from September 2023, not an independent audit of all recovery.

A reading journey can move from the Atlas pages on Kocaeli and Düzce to Kahramanmaraş, Hatay, Malatya and Diyarbakır. The Republic chronology explains time and institutions; city guides explain layers of place. This page is not an emergency instruction sheet, personal insurance advice or a current casualty counter. Its editorial choice is to remember losses without reducing people's lives to a statistic or a photograph of rubble.