Murat Kurum

Some 694 buildings have been severely damaged after an earthquake hit the eastern province of Van on Feb. 23, according to preliminary information, Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum has said.

A ministerial commission including representatives of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, 39 district municipalities, non-governmental organizations, and professional chambers will speed up urban transformation projects in Istanbul, the urbanization minister said on Feb. 21.

A prosecutor's office in the earthquake-hit eastern province of Elazığ has launched a probe into house rents following news reports on hikes after the disaster that claimed 41 lives on Jan. 24.

Turkey readies itself to accelerate urban transformation projects as some 10,000 residences for a satellite city will be constructed in the quake-hit eastern Elazığ province's Yemişlik district.

The magnitude 6.8 quake of Jan. 24 caused 37 deaths in Elazığ province, about 550 km (340 miles) east of Ankara, and four in neighboring Malatya.

In the wake of a 6.8-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 24 that claimed at least 40 lives, the government is set to kick off an urban transformation project in the eastern province of Elazığ after what it saw as a wake-up call following the collapse of several earthquake-prone buildings, vowing to replace them with disaster-resilient buildings.

Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum has said a team of more than 500 personnel under the coordination of Turkey's disaster and emergency agency AFAD began working at a site of the Elazığ earthquake, in eastern Turkey, and that the housing needs of earthquake-affected citizens would be met immediately.

The Environment and Urbanization Ministry on Jan. 17 approved the report on environmental impact of Turkey's planned megaproject, Kanal Istanbul, an official said.

Turkey shut down five thermal power plants completely and one other partially for failure to comply by the law to install filters, authorities said Jan. 1.

Four out of seven plants surveyed were allowed to operate temporarily, Environment Minister Murat Kurum told a news conference in Ankara.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has put forward his objection to the environmental impact report for the Kanal Istanbul project, a planned artificial waterway planned to connect the Black Sea and Marmara Sea northwest of Istanbul.

The Kanal Istanbul will make Turkey a leading country and place it forward on global trade, the country's environment minister said on Dec. 28.

"Kanal Istanbul is a project of protection and rescue of the Bosphorus, the freedom project of the Bosphorus," Murat Kurum told a local party meeting in Denizli province.