The human effects of Turkey’s earthquake continue to be felt in North Cyprus. Thousands of refugees from stricken areas have come to stay with family in the TRNC or because they had nowhere else to go. As one man said, “We went to bed at night, we had everything. We got up in the morning, we had nothing any more”.In response to the need to provide earthquake relief for Turkey, the government here announced that there would be a deduction from the wages of public and private sector workers to raise the necessary funds. However the decree has been revoked in response to fourteen unions filing lawsuits.
Meanwhile there have been four arrests in Turkey in connection with the collapse of the Isias Hotel in which the volleyball teams from Gazimağusa were killed. Apparently the hotel had been badly built, combining two blocks of flats in a way that was structurally unsound and using substandard building materials. So presumably inspectors as well as owners bear some responsibility. The hotel was billed as four star - which wouldn’t mean the same as four stars in most western European cities, but nothing in its literature or initial appearance would have signalled danger.