Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu denied that there was a connection between the construction of the metro and the collapse of a 7-story building in the city of Gebze, northwestern Turkey, in October, which killed four people, the Demiryoren news agency (DHA), quoted by BTA.
The building, located in the city of Gebze in the northwestern Turkish province of Kocaeli, collapsed for reasons unknown at the time at around 7:30 a.m. Turkish time (6:30 a.m. Bulgarian time). A family of 5 was buried in the incident, of which only an 18-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble. At the time, the city's mayor, Zinnur Büyükgöz, suggested that the incident might have been related to a metro line being built nearby, and a tenant of a pharmacy on the ground floor of the building said he had noticed the collapse the day before the tragic incident.
„It was a completely technical matter. In such technical matters, we do not find it right to be biased without having seen the results,” Uraloğlu said.
He stressed that the institutions should first get acquainted with the results of the investigation and studies of institutions such as the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD), the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change and the Ministry of Transport.
Uraloglu explained that the construction of the metro (which runs near the scene of the incident – ed. note) was completed two years ago and since then there has been no data on damage caused by it.
„It could be caused by the bed of an old river, it could be caused by the groundwater level, of course, earthquake risks are also a factor and of course, the fact that there was a similar metro construction. The metro construction was completed two years ago. Since then, there has been no evidence of injuries. Let's see the results. According to them, we as the Ministry will decide what to do. We are monitoring the process very closely," he said.