The devastating earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, which struck the troubled Dead Sea Rift area, was one of the strongest to hit Turkey since 1939. The disaster left behind not only a death toll of over 50,000 victims and tens of thousands of injured, but also infrastructure that was either severely damaged or completely destroyed.
Among the important buildings affected were around 400 schools, with work to rebuild the first 36 of them beginning last October. Teaching is already underway at a number of these schools. The schools have been built in various urban and rural locations (in the provinces of Kahramanmaraş, Osmaniye, Hatay, Adıyaman, Malatya and Gaziantep) along an approximately 400 km long line. A big challenge was the building of three construction yards so that all construction sites with a number of subcontractors could be managed efficiently.
"Although such a devastating earthquake can theoretically happen once every 475 years, local standards for high seismic loads were strictly followed in the design and construction of the 36 new school buildings, which were checked by the local consulting and engineering firm Tümaş." said Václav Soukup, Director of International Business for the Metrostav Group.
The affected part of Turkey is a high-risk area due to a combination of high probability of earthquake occurrence, population density and limited resilience of structures. In new builds, it is therefore not only the strict seismic standards and the choice of a suitable construction system that must be taken into account, but also the quality of the construction itself.
"This is evidenced by the fact that several industrial buildings with a Czech footprint in their design or construction (the 4x360 MW Afşin Elbistan coal-fired power plant, the 900 MW Erzin steam power plant and the Iskenderun steelworks) are in operation in this earthquake zone and survived the devastating earthquake without serious damage, and with only brief operational downtime," mentioned Marek Gasparovic, chief construction manager of the Turkish projects.
The total value of the contract amounts to about CZK 1.3 billion. The construction was financed by the Turkish public budget and partly by UNICEF.
Immediately after the earthquake, Metrostav organized a humanitarian collection in cooperation with the Turkish Embassy. 80 boxes of essential items and food were sent directly to the affected areas to help the victims of this natural disaster.
Metrostav Ankara Inşaat has been operating in Turkey since 2015 and Metrostav's successful expansion into foreign markets continues with this new contract. It has successfully completed two infrastructure projects in Istanbul in the past. The first was the M7 metro depot including access tunnels and the second was the underground cable car including the F4 technology and transport equipment. Currently, foreign contracts account for 20% of the Group's turnover.
Contact Details
Radim Mana
Metrostav Group Spokesman
Metrostav a.s. Koželužská 2450/4 180 00 Prague 8
T: 266 019 715, M: 601 110 376
radim.mana@metrostav.cz
