Container cities being built for quake victims in Van
New sites for container homes are being set up in the eastern province of Van, where a magnitude 7.2 earthquake left many people homeless on Oct. 23, to provide temporary, sustainable shelter for about 160,000 people. The sites are expected to come into use by the end of December.
The Anatolian new agency reported that 21,000 container houses costing a total of TL 350,000 will be provided and that 19,750 of the shelters were provided by the Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ), the Prime Ministry's Disaster and Emergency Administration (AFAD), the Turkish Red Crescent and Van Municipality, while the rest are provided by individual donors. The container houses, which are being produced in İstanbul, Adana, Konya, Şanlıurfa, Ankara and Kayseri, are 21 meters squared and include a kitchen section, a bathroom and two rooms. Around 160,000 quake victims are expected to be accommodated in temporary container sites in the earthquake zone that will first be built in villages, then in the city center and finally Erciş.
Responding to an Anatolia news agency reporter's question on why container houses were chosen instead of prefabricated houses, Van Mayor Münir Karaloğlu said that prefabricated houses were used as temporary shelters in Turkey before the quake on Oct. 23, but they decided to use containers instead of prefabricated houses in a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay after the quake. “There are two reasons for this decision. The first is that a container house is easier to build. It is produced and assembled somewhere else and then brought to where it is to be set up. There is no need for any construction other than leveling the ground, connecting electricity and water and establishing a sewerage system.” Karaloğlu said.
Stating that it is not possible to pour the concrete floor necessary to set up prefabricated houses in the harsh winter weather conditions of Van, Karaoğlu said: “The second reason to use container houses is that prefabricated houses are disposable and cannot reused in case of another disaster, but we can keep these container houses to provide accommodation for people in the event of another possible disaster, which makes container houses more economical.”
source: todayszaman
