Seminar on Rebuilding after February 6th, 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes at ITU

“Seminar on Rebuilding after Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes” organized by ITU Disaster Management Institute jointly with Sichuan University IDMR from China brought together experts at Prof. Dr. Remzi Ülker Conference Hall on 31 October 2023.

“Seminar on Rebuilding after February 6th, 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes” organized by Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Disaster Management Institute jointly with Sichuan University Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction (IDMR) from China brought together experts at ITU Ayazağa Campus Prof. Dr. Remzi Ülker Conference Hall on 31 October 2023.

In the opening session of the event, where issues related to the period after the Kahramanmaraş Earthquake were discussed with presentations by Turkish and Chinese academics, ITU Rector Prof. Dr. İsmail Koyuncu, Wei Xiaodong, Consul General of China in Istanbul, Mustafa Asım Alkan, Vice Governor of Istanbul, and Deng Wenwu, Chairman of the Sichuan Post-Disaster Reconstruction Foundation, took part with their speeches.

“ITU Family acted as one heart and started an aid campaign for the earthquake region”

Our Rector Prof. Dr. Koyuncu drew attention to the active role ITU members undertook in the earthquake region with the words, “Immediately after the earthquakes, groups of ITU scientists, consisting of experts in fields such as civil engineering, geology, and geophysics, made investigations and observations in the cities in the region,” and proceeded as follows:

“We, as the university community, started an aid campaign together with our students, employees, and alumni. ITU Family acted as one heart in a short time and delivered ten trucks of in-kind aid materials to the disaster-affected regions in the first instance. In addition, a donation campaign was organized to be converted into in-kind aid for earthquake victims. Furthermore, we conducted a blood donation campaign on our campus with the Turkish Red Crescent, and a donation campaign was launched to meet the needs of ITU students and their families, who were directly affected by the earthquake.”

During the day-long event, while ITU academicians and scientists from various universities and institutions in China made presentations on topics such as environmental management after earthquake disasters, effects of earthquakes from the perspective of urban and regional planning, cooperation in disaster prevention and reduction education and research, restoration and reconstruction of livelihoods in earthquake stricken areas, and earthquake waste management, there was sharing of experience between the scientists of the two countries where seismic movements are strong with the papers revealing the similarities between the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake and the Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes.