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		</div><p>Search teams have recovered 10 bodies from the rubble of a collapsed eight-storey apartment building in Istanbul.</p>
<p>The incident on Wednesday has thrown a spotlight on illegal construction in Turkey and raised alarm over the scope of possible destruction in the event of a large earthquake hitting the city.</p>
<p>Thirteen people were pulled from the debris with injuries, as rescuers worked around the clock searching for more survivors.</p>
<p>This included a five-year-old girl who was rescued on Thursday, 18 hours after the building collapsed.</p>
<figure id="attachment_125561" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-125561" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/1FA2D94B-AF9F-4644-AD0C-E0CF3697E8A5.jpeg"><img class="size-full wp-image-125561" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/1FA2D94B-AF9F-4644-AD0C-E0CF3697E8A5.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="395" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-125561" class="wp-caption-text">A five-year-old girl is carried to a waiting ambulance after being pulled from the rubble]</figcaption></figure>
<p>The authorities have not disclosed how many people remain unaccounted for.</p>
<p>The building, in the mostly residential Kartal district, on the Asian side of the city, had 14 apartments, with 43 people registered as residents.</p>
<p>Neighbour Cemile Dag said the collapse had brought to mind haunting images from a deadly earthquake that hit northwestern Turkey in 1999, destroying thousands of homes.</p>
<p>“At first I thought a gas tank had exploded in our building. I looked behind me and the building, like a deck of cards, fell to the ground. There were wails, screaming,” she said.</p>
<p>“People are gone … Just like that disaster during the earthquake, this is the same.”</p>
<figure id="attachment_125563" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-125563" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/3BA0155D-18F3-4B4D-A1F1-5F48C9368BC9.jpeg"><img class="size-full wp-image-125563" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/3BA0155D-18F3-4B4D-A1F1-5F48C9368BC9.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-125563" class="wp-caption-text">The site of the building collapse</figcaption></figure>
<p>Officials have said the building’s top three floors were built illegally, although the cause of the collapse is still under investigation.</p>
<p>Experts from the Istanbul branch of the chamber of civil engineers who visited the site concluded that the “load-bearing columns had lost the capacity to carry the weight” of the building, the group said in a statement on Thursday.</p>
<p>A majority of buildings in Istanbul are “either unlicensed, illegal or were constructed without any engineering services”, the group added.</p>
<p>“You don’t need to be a civil engineer to guess (the result) of a probable earthquake,” it said.</p>
<p>“Such disasters will continue.”</p>
<p>The engineering group and others have strongly criticised a government amnesty for illegal constructions introduced last year to bolster the ruling party ahead of elections.</p>
<p>Can Akin, from the Chamber of Geology Engineers, said many buildings in Istanbul were built without an adequate investigation of the ground conditions.</p>
<p>“Istanbul is situated on a seismic belt,” the expert said.</p>
<p>“In the event of an earthquake in Istanbul, we could be faced with a dire picture.”</p>
<p>Turkey’s emergency management agency, Afad, warned in August that up to 30,000 people could be killed in Istanbul if a magnitude 7.5 earthquake were to hit the city of 15 million.</p>
<p>The agency estimated 50,000 people could be critically injured and 44,802 buildings could collapse.</p>
<p>Some 2.4 million people would be left homeless.</p>
<p>The warning came on the anniversary of the August 17 1999, magnitude 7.4 earthquake that killed more than 17,000 people in northwestern Turkey.</p>
<p>Murat Kurum, environment and urbanisation minister, said that several other buildings in the area had seven, nine or 10 floors, despite receiving permits for five.</p>
<p>“Provincial authorities are in the process of identifying them and … action will be taken against buildings that carry risks,” he said.</p>
<p>“Our citizens’ lives and property are of paramount importance.”</p>
<p> ;</p>
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