Root Cause of Critical Infrastructure Failures in the 2023 Southeast Turkey Earthquake: A case study from Hatay

The 2023 Turkey Earthquake caused widespread collapse and severe damage to Hatay's critical infrastructure, including the airport, water pipelines, telecommunications, railroads, roads, hospitals, and the harbor. These damages resulted in significant destruction and also disrupted search and rescue operations, delayed emergency aid. This devastating event highlighted the inadequacies in pre-disaster planning in Turkey. Shortly after the event, recovery policies were rapidly formulated to address urgent needs which led to reactive measures that focused on returning to baseline conditions. Unfortunately, such approaches perpetuated existing vulnerabilities, as the root causes of these weaknesses were not identified and addressed. Over time, these reactive measures exacerbated social, economic, and environmental challenges, turning future natural disasters into more severe crisis. A proactive approach that incorporates pre-disaster vulnerability assessments and infrastructure evaluations is essential for building long-term resilience. This research fills a critical gap in disaster literature by investigating the root causes of infrastructure failures during the 2023 Southeast Turkey earthquake. Specifically, we explored the shortcomings in disaster management processes and infrastructure planning in Hatay, Turkey that contributed to catastrophic outcomes. The study utilizes a combination of stakeholder interviews, event analysis, and qualitative fault tree analysis to identify these root causes, which remain unclear more than a year after the earthquake. Building on this understanding, we evaluated post-disaster recovery plans to assess their ability to mitigate these identified vulnerabilities. The results offer valuable insights into improving disaster preparedness and recovery strategies.

Keywords: Disaster resilience, Earthquake impact, 2023 Southeast Turkey earthquake, Fault tree analysis, Critical infrastructure.