“Earthquake survivors threatened with housing promise”

The government rushed into rebuilding and continued its threats to earthquake victims with promises of housing, the CHP (Republican People’s Party) chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu said in a video he posted on Twitter.

“ They say, if we leave, if you do not give us another year, you will be homeless and destitute,” Kilicdaroglu said, accusing the ruling AKP of turning the disaster into an elecçtoraml strategy ahead of Turkey’s presidential elections.

Turkish government has officially begun rebuilding process with what it calls "revitalization and reconstruction" of the earthquake zone, with a presidential decree published on Friday in the Official Gazette.

The Turkish government's initial plan is to build 200,000 apartments and 70,000 village houses at a cost of at least $15 billion, a Turkish official said.

But Kilicdaroglu denounced the hasty reconstruction efforts:

"The government got into the business of building housing while a pile of 100 million tons of rubble is being piled up, while our people are lying dead under that rubble, with asbestos, with poison, with dust, because all they care about is elections"

He added:

"My dear people, the only thing we have to fear from now on is fear itself. No one should capitulate to fear. Remember, no one can threaten you because of the right to housing. The housing problem will be solved, houses will be built, every citizen made homeless by the earthquake will find a new home."