After the Earthquake: The Politics of Disaster Response in Turkey
A Crown Conversation with Zeynep Kadirbeyoğlu
Organized and edited by Ramyar D. Rossoukh, Associate Director for Research
February 16, 2026
In February 2023, devastating earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey and northwest Syria, killing more than 50,000 people. In the aftermath, attention quickly shifted from the scale of the disaster to the state’s ability to coordinate rescue and relief. Three years on, we speak with former Crown faculty leave fellow Zeynep Kadirbeyoğlu about why the Turkish government struggled to respond effectively and what the experience reveals about governance in Turkey today. In this Crown Conversation, she argues that the problem was not simply one of resources or capacity but the effects of an increasingly centralized authoritarian system—one that has weakened institutions, constrained expertise and civil society, and prioritized information control, with consequences that extend well beyond emergency management.
Can you start by explaining what happened on February 6, 2023, and why these earthquakes were such a consequential moment for Turkey?
Zeynep Kadirbeyoğlu: Before dawn on February 6, 2023, a series of powerful 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey and northwest Syria, devastating a vast region. In Turkey alone, more than 36,900 buildings collapsed, and the official death toll reached over 50,000 people, with the highest losses concentrated in provinces such as Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, and Adıyaman. Entire neighborhoods were flattened, and thousands of people remained trapped under the rubble in freezing winter conditions.
The disaster also carried a strong sense of déjà vu. After the devastating 1999 Marmara earthquake, which killed more than 17,000 people and exposed serious weaknesses in disaster preparedness, Turkey had invested heavily in building a centralized response system. As a result, the February 2023 earthquakes became a defining moment not only because of the human toll, but because they exposed deep vulnerabilities in how disaster response is organized and governed in Turkey.
In the the aftermath of the earthquakes, what stood out to you most about how the response unfolded on the ground?
Kadirbeyoğlu: What stood out most was the timing. Despite Turkey’s long experience with seismic disasters and the existence of a centralized disaster response agency, systematic search-and-rescue operations did not begin in many of the hardest-hit areas for more than two days. Survivors, local residents, and civil society organizations repeatedly reported long periods without coordinated rescue efforts, even as officials claimed that state agencies had reached all affected areas.
This delay had devastating consequences. In disasters like this, the first 24 to 48 hours are crucial for saving lives. By the time a more organized response began to take shape, many opportunities for rescue had already been lost. What was especially striking was that there was no shortage of people willing to help—local volunteers, municipalities, NGOs, and professional rescue teams mobilized quickly—but the system struggled to turn that collective effort into effective action.
It also became clear that coordination was failing at multiple levels. Local officials and provincial authorities often waited for instructions from Ankara rather than acting on existing plans, slowing decision-making at precisely the moment when flexibility and initiative were most needed. This was particularly jarring given that Turkey had conducted extensive disaster drills and had a detailed response plan on paper.
When you say coordination broke down, what does that mean in practice? How is Turkey’s disaster response system supposed to function?
Kadirbeyoğlu: In principle, Turkey’s disaster response system is highly centralized and designed to ensure coordination across institutions. Since 2009, disaster response has been formally overseen by the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) in Ankara, which brings together representatives from relevant ministries and the Turkish Red Crescent. According to Turkey’s National Disaster Response Plan, there are 25 working groups responsible for different aspects of disaster response, including search and rescue, evacuation, communication, and security, each coordinated by a different institution. AFAD also has provincial branches in all 81 provinces, regional logistics warehouses, and specialized search-and-rescue units, with provincial governors heading local disaster committees.
On paper, this structure is meant to streamline decision-making and ensure rapid mobilization of resources. AFAD has conducted disaster drills, invested in equipment, and developed detailed response plans. In fact, in 2019, the government carried out a three-day drill simulating a 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Kahramanmaraş–the same province as the 2023 disaster–and publicly declared the system ready.
In practice, however, coordination depends not only on plans but on autonomy, trust, and the ability to act without waiting for approval from the center. Following Turkey’s transition to a presidential system in 2018, AFAD–which had initially been designed as a coordinating body–was brought under tighter political oversight. As a result, both central and provincial officials were reluctant to act independently of the Ministry of Interior and the presidency.
What this revealed was a gap between institutional design and institutional behavior. The disaster response system appeared comprehensive, but it proved inflexible and slow in the face of a fast-moving, large-scale crisis that demanded decentralized decision-making and local initiative.
You’ve noted that many actors mobilized quickly outside the state, but that the system struggled to turn that effort into effective action. How did the government interact with these groups?
Kadirbeyoğlu: One of the clearest things in the aftermath was how essential these actors were—and how difficult it was for them to plug into the official response. Civil society organizations, professional associations, municipalities, and experts—many of whom mobilized quickly—were often treated as competitors or political risks rather than partners. This made coordination harder rather than easier and prevented the system from drawing on existing expertise and local knowledge that could have strengthened the response.
In principle, Turkey’s disaster response plan includes only accredited NGOs, which is a reasonable requirement given the specialized nature of search-and-rescue work. But even basic mechanisms for collaboration were weak: for example, there was no publicly available list of accredited NGOs on AFAD’s website, and in practice, coordination often depended on informal access, political trust, and the ability to work within a highly centralized chain of command. As a result, well-established professional bodies such as the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects—embroiled in legal disputes with the government over urban transformation policies—saw their applications to participate in post-earthquake search-and-rescue efforts go unanswered.
On the ground, many civil society organizations, professional associations, municipalities, and volunteer networks mobilized rapidly—especially in the first 48 hours, when state assistance was slow to reach the hardest-hit areas. But rather than building on these emergent networks, there were repeated reports that AFAD sought to take control upon arrival, sometimes dispersing existing efforts rather than coordinating with them. In Turkey’s polarized political environment, NGOs perceived as oppositional often struggled to collaborate with the state, and some groups reported being ignored, pressured, or pushed to relocate—even when they were providing urgent services.
This dynamic extended to technical and scientific expertise as well. Although Turkey has funded extensive research and preparedness work since 1999, experts described being excluded from meaningful planning and decision-making for years. Only after the disaster did the government convene a forum—the “National Risk Shield Meeting”—where dozens of scientists and practitioners were given only a few minutes each to present recommendations, underscoring how limited and late that engagement was.
How did the management of information and public communication during the earthquake shape the relief effort itself?
Kadirbeyoğlu: Information became a crisis in its own right. As criticism of the slow and uneven response grew, public communication was often shaped more by deflection and suppression than by transparency. Officials repeatedly framed the earthquakes as the “disaster of the century,” and criticism was treated as illegitimate—at times even as disloyalty—rather than as feedback that might improve the response. Instead of taking stock of what was going wrong, the government declared a state of emergency in the region in the name of fighting “disinformation,” and citizens who criticized the response were detained or arrested.
This mattered for relief itself because, in the first days, information flows were central to coordinating rescue and aid—especially through social media. Yet Twitter access was restricted for roughly 12 hours two days after the earthquake, even though it was being used to direct rescue teams to people trapped under the rubble and to communicate urgent needs. Restrictions like this did not simply shape the public narrative; they also impeded communication at precisely the moment when speed, coordination, and reliable information were essential.
At the same time, there was a strong emphasis on managing public perception. Civil society groups accused AFAD of prioritizing self-promotion and optics, and there were reports that “rescue” itself became mediatized—where teams would do the work, and then AFAD would arrive at the last moment to record and publicize the rescue as its own. More broadly, the government’s focus on maintaining control over information reinforced a pattern in which coordination became harder, trust eroded further, and criticism was met with repression.
How has the government’s handling of the earthquake and its aftermath shaped political dynamics in Turkey?
Kadirbeyoğlu: President Erdoğan's awareness of the political ramifications of public perception stems from his own ascent to power in the aftermath of the 1999 earthquake. In the run-up to the May 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections, he used both sticks and carrots in convincing the population to vote for him: he promised to restart the construction in the region immediately, building on his construction-based economic growth model that had been in operation since AKP came to power. These strategies, along with the opposition alliance's inability to find a suitable candidate, meant that Erdoğan was re-elected as president. His own support did not diminish, but his party lost a significant vote share in the parliamentary elections.
The maintenance of the unchecked centralized presidential system is likely to continue and hollow out the institutions from within. However, in the 2024 local elections, Erdoğan’s party lost mayoral seats in some provinces where it had held them since 1994, especially in Adıyaman. The effects of the earthquake are complicated, and there were other factors explaining the loss of AKP in the local elections, such as the grassroots mobilization capacity of the main opposition party prior to the local elections.
Yet, AKP no longer tolerates losses in elections: many opposition party mayors were imprisoned and removed from office based on corruption charges in 2024 and 2025. There are no other elections until 2028, and the unchecked consolidation of power within the centralized presidential system threatens to perpetuate a cycle of governance characterized by opacity and authoritarianism.
Three years after the February 2023 earthquakes, what does the state's response reveal about governing institutions in Turkey today?
Kadirbeyoğlu: The February 2023 earthquakes revealed how authoritarian centralization can undermine state capacity rather than strengthen it. In theory, centralization is often presented as a way to enable faster decision-making and more effective coordination. But what we saw in practice was a system that looked strong on paper, yet proved inflexible and slow under extreme pressure.
The earthquakes exposed not only failures in disaster management, but deeper vulnerabilities in Turkey’s governing institutions. A highly centralized system may concentrate authority, but it can also produce red tape, hesitation, and distrust–leaving the state less capable of responding effectively when it is most needed. These dynamics extend well beyond disaster response. Personalized governance, information control, and the monopolization of interpretation shape governance across all domains of public life, sustaining authoritarian rule despite visible failures. In this sense, authoritarian resilience rests less on the state’s capacity to perform its duties than on the ability to manage failure and suppress dissent.
Zeynep Kadirbeyoğlu is a visiting research associate at the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto and a former faculty leave fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies.
For more Crown Center publications on Turkey and related themes discussed in this Crown Conversation, see: “Beyond Erdoğan: Lessons from Turkey’s 2024 Local Elections,” “Turkey’s Economic Crisis and Erdoğan’s Multiple Rapprochement Initiatives,” “Mayors and Municipalities: How Local Government Shapes Kurdish Politics in Turkey,” and “Criminalizing Environmental Activism in Turkey.”
The opinions and findings expressed in this Conversation belong to the authors exclusively and do not reflect those of the Crown Center or Brandeis University.