Turkey, Greece prepare against earthquakes

The drill in Ankara is a sign of cooperation between the traditional rivals after a thaw that followed a mutual outpouring of aid and sympathy after deadly earthquakes struck both Turkey and Greece in 1999.

Tom Parsons, a geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey, said the recent earthquake devastation in Italy underlines the importance of retrofitting vulnerable buildings. The death toll in that quake is at least 260.

"L’Aquila tragedy in Italy shows us that we must invest in protecting and retrofitting historic buildings so that they are preserved safely," Parsons said. "It is expensive, but worth the investment."

Scientists say an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or greater is likely to strike Istanbul in the next 30 years.

Geologists have urged the Turkish government since 1999 - when two earthquakes west of Istanbul killed more than 18,000 people - to tear down about 50,000 buildings that would probably collapse if a big quake hits Istanbul. They say hundreds of thousands of other buildings that rise in an unstable mass of brick, mortar and stone, need to be reinforced.

"We must try to change the conversation away from prediction and move it to retrofitting," Parsons said. "The odds of us getting any sort of early warning are low, and even if we did, many people would be unwilling or unable to evacuate."

The Turkish-Greek exercise featured a scenario of a joint search-and-rescue effort after a magnitude 7.4 quake in Turkey, said Maj. Ali Ulker, commander of the Turkish Special Forces rescue team.

On a cloudy Wednesday afternoon, a search team of 30 men climbed down ropes from helicopters, went to a mock disaster site and crawled over a collapsed building. Turks, wearing bright orange jumpsuits, and the Greeks in traditional blue quickly got down to the noisy business of digging out survivors.

A handful of soldiers cordoned off the area to keep civilians out. The teams carried the soldiers in civilian clothes faking injury on stretchers and the dummies in yellow body bags.

"Our aim is to improve operational capabilities and coordination to jointly respond to natural disasters," said Lt. Col. George Beldocos, deputy commander of Greece’s air force engineering wing. "This has been in accordance with confidence building measures between Greece and Turkey in 2009."

Ulker said the cooperation "has been excellent" between the Turkish and Greek teams who conducted two similar exercises since 2006.

Experts and the public expect the powerful Turkish military to take a leading role in responding to a quake - even though officers insist they would only serve in a backup capacity to the civilian government. Now, the Greek military rescue teams are also expected to rush to the aid of Turks.

Photo: Selcuk Senyuz