Investigations have been launched against more than 600 people in relation to buildings that collapsed in Turkey’s catastrophic earthquake earlier this month, a government official said Saturday.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 184 of the 612 suspects had been jailed pending trial. Those in custody include construction contractors and building owners or managers, he said in televised comments from a coordination center in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.
The aftermath of the 7.8-magnitude quake on February 6, which led to nearly 48,000 deaths in southern Turkey and northern Syria, has seen Turks question the structural integrity of many of the 173,000 buildings that collapsed or were seriously damaged.
