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Explained: Decree Grants Tax Exemptions to People Impacted by February 6 Quake

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More than a month after the February 06 earthquake, President Bashar Al-Assad issued a decree granting tax exemptions for people impacted by the disaster. Some of the measures listed in Legislative Decree No. 3 of 2023 are related to real estate that was partially or fully damaged in the earthquake, exempting owners from some current taxes and fees and temporarily from future taxes. The decree also eases the process for obtaining loans to restore damaged properties. 

At the same time, the decree did not include financial compensation to repair damaged properties, rental allowances for those who lost their homes, and promises of alternative housing. In short, the decree added nothing new regarding housing, land, and property rights for earthquake-affected communities, instead approaching the disaster from a technical and financial angle. 

In this sense, Decree No. 3 of 2023 is similar in content to the previous Decree No. 13 of 2022. The 2022 measure granted wide-reaching facilities and tax exemptions for properties in old city centres within Aleppo, Homs and Deir-ez-Zor governorates, including historic souks. 

Decree No. 3 of 2023 only extends to people impacted by the February 06 earthquake, and stresses that it does not apply to any other natural disasters. Furthermore, the decree’s scope is limited to the governorates most affected by the quake: Aleppo, Lattakia, Hama and Idlib. Beneficiaries include real estate owners or occupants whose facilities, shops, homes or buildings suffered full or partial collapse or were cracked and need reinforcement. 

For each earthquake-affected governorate, the Minister of Local Administration and Environment is tasked with forming a committee of “relevant entities” to identify the residents impacted by the February 06 disaster. Based on each committee’s findings, governors issue decisions officially identifying their governorate’s impacted residents. 

These identified residents will then be exempted from all taxes, financial fees, local fees and costs, service payments, permit fees and any additional costs imposed for partial or full reconstruction work or rehabilitation of facilities, shops, homes and buildings. In short, the decree granted exemptions for such payments – most importantly fees for reconstruction and rehabilitation permits – until the end of 2024. Anyone who wishes to conduct such work is no longer required to pay such fees during that time. 

Rehabilitation of a building means it can be repaired without the need for demolition or removal. On the other hand, reconstruction means that the building was damaged beyond rehabilitation and needs to be rebuilt or either fully or partially restored. 

The state imposes obligatory taxes on all citizens in order to secure treasury funds, without providing any direct services in exchange. Financial fees, on the other hand, are payments made to benefit the public treasury in exchange for certain services; these include real estate fees. Local fees and costs are those imposed by local councils in exchange for provision of services, such as sanitation. Only those who benefit from the relevant public services pay financial and local fees. 

Finally, service fees are those imposed by public entities or institutions for certain services, such as rubble removal, water and sewage networks. Additional or supplemental charges on service fees can be imposed during reconstruction or rehabilitation work in exchange for supervision from the Engineers Syndicate and employees of the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs’ Surveying Department. 

Article 2 of the decree exempts people impacted by the quake from paying real estate income and building plot taxes, which are annual taxes for real estate and other facilities of all categories, whether fully built or still under construction, and whether for residential, commercial or industrial purposes. In addition, Article 2 exempted earthquake-impacted property owners from the local fees and costs mentioned in Financial Law of Administrative Units No. 37 of 2021. 

Article 6 of the recent decree also cancelled the checking of paying for due taxes and fees prior to March 12, 2023, the date when the decree was issued. Next, Article 7 cancelled the checking of paying for due real estate and building plot income taxes in the earthquake-damaged areas. Cancelling these checking of paying for due taxes and fees means suspending as-yet-unpaid old requests for tax and fee payments on collapsing buildings. As a consequence, the decree suspended payments of some old taxes and fees incurred on damaged properties before its implementation date. 

According to Article 11, the exemptions only extend to people whose facilities, shops, homes or buildings suffered full or partial destruction or were cracked and need reinforcement. This means that safe, undamaged properties are not exempt, even if they are located in earthquake-damaged area, with the exception of real estate and construction plot taxes, which are suspended for all real estate in damaged areas according to Article 7. 

Paragraph B of Article 11 clarified that the tax exemptions and suspensions do not include real estate sales taxes that are subject to Law No. 15 of 2021. Consequently, this means that sales of real estate in earthquake-damaged zones remain subject to real estate sales taxes, though it is unclear why they are not exempt. 

The decree also stated that people impacted by the quake would be granted easements in paying off any loans incurred and obtaining new loans from public banks. Under Article 14, public banks may grant interest-free loans with a SYP200-million ceiling to people hoping to either partially or rebuild following the quake, or those hoping to rehabilitate their properties. 

According to the decree, the loan payback period is ten years, so long as the first payment is made within three years of the date the loan was granted. The state treasury bears any interest and commissions arising from granting the loans. 

Post-earthquake Shelter Centres in Lattakia City

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In the aftermath of the February 6 earthquake, many survivors whose homes were either partially or fully destroyed sought shelter in dozens of shelter centres set up hastily in Lattakia city. The number of these shelters has decreased in recent days to just 15, with many people returning to their homes after ascertaining their structural safety, according to The Syria Report’s local correspondent. 

Schools

After a building just across from their house collapsed, Munira and her husband, both in their late 60s, moved into a shelter centre set up in a Lattakia city school. According to Munira, all 24 residents of the shelter centre went without any aid for days following the earthquake. She began to develop severe kidney pain due to the extreme cold and from sitting on wooden seats meant for students and had to be transported to a hospital. 

Munira told The Syria Report that most children in the shelter centre developed colds. It wasn’t until the fifth day after the earthquake that volunteer teams from NGOs arrived and handed out meals, mattresses, blankets, medicine and baby formula. 

From the shelter centre, Munira and her husband returned to their home, which structural safety teams hadn’t yet inspected. Though the couple feared aftershocks and the house potentially had some invisible cracks, it was more comfortable for them than the shelter centre. 

The shelters set up in Lattakia city’s school buildings are the worst in terms of services provided to residents. Even before the earthquake, the schools were unclean and faced continuous power cuts, poorly maintained bathrooms and hot water shortages. Initially, shelters were set up in 25 school buildings, where people took refuge after the quake. People stayed in classrooms without blankets, electricity, heating devices, hot water, or working bathrooms. 

In some cases, women faced harassment in the shelters, mainly due to a lack of management supervision. Naila, a woman in her 20s, lives alone. Part of the building collapsed due to the earthquake, so she went with her neighbours to a shelter centre in a nearby school. While there, a young man tried to exploit Naila’s need for housing, repeatedly offering to move her into an apartment where she could live on her own. When she refused, the man made an offer of customary marriage. To escape the situation, Naila went to stay with relatives outside of Lattakia city. 

 

The Municipal Stadium and the Sports City

Said and his family were displaced to Lattakia’s Municipal Stadium when their house partially collapsed in the quake. Because Said is active in a civil society NGO, his family was able to use his connections to obtain an electric heater. He could also find some privacy for his sisters in a separate room. 

Aid organisations assisted in the stadium shelter centre immediately after the earthquake, including three meals daily for residents and medicine for those in need. According to The Syria Report’s local correspondent, the stadium is among the best shelter centres in Lattakia. About 4,000 sought shelter there right after the quake, though only 300 remained at the time of writing. Electricity is available in the stadium, with only two-hour daily cutoffs. 

 

The same goes for the existing shelter centre in Lattakia Sports City, which received many displaced people from Aleppo and the rural parts of the Lattakia governorate throughout the war. The two centres were ideal for communicating with NGOs and government organisations to provide aid.

 

Mosques

Rama, her husband, and her infant son were displaced to a neighbourhood mosque after cracks appeared in their home due to the earthquake. The family of three suffered from a lack of privacy in the shelter centre. Everyone who had fled there lived together in the central part of the mosque with no dividers, which made changing clothes and bathing very difficult, especially for women. 

Food supplies arrived at the mosque in the very first days after the quake but were distributed in an unorganised manner. It wasn’t until six days after the earthquake that aid organisations began paying attention to women’s needs. Nevertheless, residents say that the mosque shelter centres are among the best because they are cleaned regularly and have steady electricity and hot water supplies. The biggest issue in these shelters is the lack of privacy, especially for women. 

Explained: Syrian Law and HLP Rights in Natural Disasters

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No law in Syria’s legislative system specifically addresses real estate damaged by natural disasters. Article 24 of the Syrian Constitution, issued as part of Decree No. 94 of 2012, says that the state, alongside the society, bears the burdens resulting from such disasters, without any indication of which laws deal with such events. 

Although some laws mention issues related to real estate damaged by natural disasters, they do not address housing, land, and property rights. In all these cases, the few laws that exist for natural disasters distinguish between licensed buildings and buildings built without construction permits, as well as between informal settlements and zoned areas. 

Syrian Civil Code

Article 817 of Syrian Civil Code No. 84 of 1949 states that the owners may form a union where the real estate is divided into separate apartments or storeys. Under Article 823, if the building is destroyed by a fire or other means, the partners in this union must abide by what the union decides by the majority. 

If the union decides to rebuild, then compensation money due for the damages is allocated. In practice, this means that for licensed buildings in a zoned area, should most owners want to rebuild, then reconstruction is carried out at their expense. Each owner contributes according to their share in the building. The union may also employ compensation money or assistance the state provides for reconstruction. Afterwards, the building is returned to its owners in the same condition it was in beforehand. 

In practice, however, residential building unions like the ones mentioned above have yet to be formed in Syria. Instead, there is Law on Building Occupants’ Organisations and their Administrative Committees No. 55 of 2022, issued to regulate and maintain the commonly used portions of residential buildings and thus enable occupants to settle disputes arising from their use. This law is non-binding, and many buildings do not have such committees. 

If the building cannot be reconstructed, the shareowners may terminate their common ownership of the property and divide it up. First, they must correct the legal property description of the real estate and list it as merely a plot of land slated for construction. In other words, subdivided ownership of the building ceases to exist, and each owner reverts to joint owners of the land itself. In such cases, the owners are entitled to the rubble of their former homes and any monetary compensation or aid as decided by the state.

Law No. 15 of 2008

In cases where Real Estate Development and Investment Law No. 15 of 2008 is applied to an area damaged by a natural disaster, the real estate developer must secure alternative housing for occupants or pay an agreed-upon cash allowance. Recipients must pay for any alternative accommodation they are allocated. This law may include real estate within and outside an existing zoning plan. It also stipulates allocating and selling real estate residential shares within the zoned real estate area to occupants of expropriated homes after the completion of construction work. 

Under Article 14 of this law, real estate development and investment projects aimed at sheltering people impacted by natural disasters are a top priority among other projects.

Law No. 33 of 2008 

For real estate destroyed by natural disasters, Syria’s executive authority may apply Law No. 33 of 2008, which addresses establishing ownership for built properties and parts of unbuilt properties in informal settlements or areas with mass unlicensed construction. This is although the law itself does not mention natural disasters. 

To apply Law No. 33 to real estate destroyed by natural disasters, the properties must have undergone delimitation and census, be recorded in the Land Registry and be connected within one area. According to the law’s executive instructions, the buildings on these properties must also constitute at least 50 percent of the properties’ surface areas. 

This law does not stipulate granting alternative housing or compensation for people impacted by natural disasters, as its scope is limited to simply establishing ownership of properties. Law No. 33 may not apply to a damaged area if another zoning, urbanisation, real estate development or investment law is in force there.

Legislative Decree No. 40 of 2012 

Legislative Decree No. 40 of 2012, which focuses on unlicensed construction, states that if a property within a zoned area built in violation of the building permit has been destroyed, it becomes the owners’ common property. Those owners may request a renewed construction permit per the building codes in place. 

Decree No. 40 does not entitle owners of unlicensed buildings to any rights should their properties collapse. Instead, Article 2 of the law states that if an unlicensed facility is incapable of standing (according to an assessment by that governorate’s public safety committee) then whoever is found responsible should be sentenced to a year to three years imprisonment. Should the building’s collapse cause the death of one or more persons, the penalty increases to at least ten years of hard labour and three times the usual fine. 

Law No. 23 of 2015

Chapter two on Zoning and Urbanisation Law No. 23/2015 can apply to areas impacted by natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods. However, the law leaves it up to the local administrative units in damaged areas to apply zoning measures according to prior zoning plans when implementing approved plans, meaning they are not obliged to rezone areas impacted by natural disasters.

Law No. 23 does allow exemptions from fees and any other local costs and sums related to rebuilding destroyed real estate. At the same time, the law entitles administrative units to deduct parts of these damaged areas free of charge and expropriate areas containing mass unlicensed construction that happen to be located within approved zoning plans. 

The law calls for creating compulsory land readjustment committees tasked with giving rights holders their due shares, either within or near the location of their original property. Rights holders may also be granted plots of land to be commonly owned between them, provided each owner’s share is identified. However, these measures apply only to properties that have been licensed. Law No. 23 states that owners have rights only over the rubble for unlicensed properties within zoned areas or state-owned lands. Administrative entities may choose to sell alternative housing to the owners of unlicensed properties if there is a surplus.  

Law No. 10 of 2018

Law No. 10 of 2018 stipulates that one or more zoned real estate areas may be established within the zoning plans of an administrative unit and was meant to complement Legislative Decree No. 66 of 2012. The 2018 law may be applied only to areas containing unlicensed construction and informal housing destroyed by natural disasters, as it does not stipulate any application in already licensed buildings in zoned areas. 

Article 43 of Law No. 10 states that owners of unlicensed construction only have the right to the rubble of their buildings and the possibility of being allocated alternative housing by the local administrative unit if there is a surplus. However, they must pay for such housing. They may also receive two years of rent allowance. 

Law No. 3 of 2018

Finally, Law No. 3 of 2018, which focuses on removing the rubble of damaged buildings, was issued in response to the destruction Syria faced due to the war. However, the law also includes measures for removing the rubble of buildings destroyed by natural causes such as earthquakes. In either case, it is up to the relevant governor, based on proposals by local administrative units, to determine which damaged areas will undergo rubble removal. 

Law No. 3 does not differentiate between the rubble of buildings in zoned vs unzoned areas. It also does not stipulate what is meant to happen to lands where debris has been removed or when facilities at risk of collapse have been demolished. The law does not clarify whether owners of these properties may construct new buildings, whether they must be compensated or even if the land is expropriated, whether allowance payments or alternative housing must be given to the owner. However, Law No. 3 clearly states that property owners have ownership rights over the rubble of their buildings. 

This law is not limited to only removing building rubble but also includes the possibility of administrative units demolishing damaged buildings and removing debris. 

Tallying the Damages from the February 6 Earthquake

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During a March 2 meeting chaired by the Minister of Local Administration and Environment, Syria’s Higher Relief Committee stated that the earthquake had impacted 414,304 people in Syria. 

The committee added that 4,444 buildings were unsafe for return and could not be reinforced, while 29,751 buildings needed reinforcement work to be safe. There were 30,113 buildings deemed safe but needing maintenance work and 292 buildings that had been demolished to protect public safety. This survey was conducted in coordination with structural safety teams and technical assistance committees. 

During a parliamentary session on February 20, the Minister of Local Administration and Environment said that 199 buildings collapsed during the earthquake.

The affected governorates

It appears from the figures reported by each governorate separately that the number of damaged buildings at risk of collapse is vast and is incommensurate with the number of buildings that collapsed at the moment of the earthquake and that their total is greater than the numbers reported by the Higher Relief Committee. It is also difficult to precisely determine whether all these buildings were damaged by the February 6 earthquake or had suffered previous damages. 

Aleppo

The semi-official Al-Watan newspaper published a report on February 27 about the Higher Relief Committee’s branch in Aleppo governorate, stating that the body had examined 11,277 buildings. Of those, 8,600 were deemed structurally sound, while 2,677 were structurally unsound due to the earthquake. 

In a February 19 press conference, the Aleppo governorate stated that 53 buildings had collapsed due to the earthquake; The Syria Report found that 50 buildings were located in formerly opposition-held parts of east Aleppo city and many were uninhabited and already at risk of collapse. The other three collapsed buildings were old and in poor condition and located in central Aleppo city. No building collapses were recorded in the city’s western neighbourhoods, which remained relatively protected from armed conflict during the war. 

Before the earthquake, most of the buildings that risked falling in Aleppo had previously been damaged by fighting. In November 2022, the Aleppo City Council demolished some of the 1,500 buildings at risk of collapse. These buildings had faced regime bombing damage during the period of opposition control over that part of the city in 2012-2016. 

Lattakia

In a March 2 press conference by the Relief Operations Room in Lattakia governorate, the governor said that 27,641 buildings had been inspected. Some 967 buildings had been completely damaged and could not undergo reinforcement work. 

According to preliminary official figures issued in the first days after the quake, around 50 buildings in the Lattakia governorate collapsed fully and another 50 buildings partially. On February 14, The Syria Report wrote that at least 50 buildings in the governorate had fully collapsed, including at least 16 in Lattakia city alone. 

Hama

According to the Hama branch of the Higher Relief Committee and its operations room, by February 27, the governorate had inspected 38,000 homes and shops. Of those, 2,000 buildings were at risk of collapse and required evacuation. Many buildings were deemed safe but had cracks and needed restoration work. 

These numbers appear quite extensive and don’t match the only four buildings recorded to have collapsed in Hama during the earthquake. Two of those buildings were in Hama city, one of which was uninhabited, while the other two were in the rural part of the governorate. One apparent explanation is that the Hama governorate classified all buildings that failed to meet structural safety standards as buildings that were damaged in the quake. 

Tartous

A source in Tartous governorate told Al-Watan on February 28 that engineering teams had, to date, inspected 4,000 buildings. Of those buildings, 117 were homes that needed to be demolished and 587 needed reinforcement. 

Dozens of old homes had partially collapsed in the area around Al-Qadmous Castle due to the earthquake. Other homes in the main souk of Baniyas city also faced damage. 

 

Temporary Housing for Syria’s Earthquake-Impacted Residents

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Since the first days following the February 6 earthquake, Syrian officials have issued statements saying they would secure alternative housing for people in regime-held areas whose homes had collapsed completely or were at risk of collapse due to cracks. But as more time has passed, officials have begun using a different term: temporary housing for residents of shelter centres. 

Alternative housing is a loose term that usually refers to non-free housing implemented by the General Housing Establishment (GHE) as part of the country’s social housing programmes. Residents of informal settlements may apply to receive such housing if their homes are expropriated or demolished or if their neighbourhoods are re-zoned. However, Syrian law does not stipulate any rights to alternative housing for those whose homes have been affected by natural disasters. 

While temporary alternative housing or temporary housing, according to official statements, are new terms describing prefabricated housing units that will be transported to earthquake-affected governorates and will apply to people currently staying in shelter centres. A typical unit consists of one or two rooms. 

It remains unclear who will pay for setting up and transporting these units, how they will be distributed, and who will benefit from them. Some official statements have said they welcome foreign aid to fund the construction of housing units and the provision of ready-made ones. Some statements have also been vague and contradictory in terms of where the units will be set up, how many there will be and their prices and costs. Also, it is unclear what the eventual fate of these prefabricated housing units will be, who owns them and whether they will be dismantled at some point in the future. 

The government’s approach appears to have gradually abandoned talk of alternative housing in its long-term sense (as well as any related rights for residents) in favour of focusing on prefabricated housing units to be used as temporary alternatives to the shelter centres. This concept has gradually developed over the past several weeks and appears to both fall in line with the government’s financial capabilities and lighten popular pressure by securing some housing units for affected residents. But this is a medium-term approach and does not solve the problem. 

The Minister of Public Works and Housing told the semi-official Al-Watan newspaper on February 20 that those currently impacted by the earthquake cannot continue to stay in the temporary shelter centres for a long period. The state needs the centres back at some point to use them again for its original services. 

How many prefabricated housing units are there? 

The idea for prefabricated housing units first emerged on February 15, when the Minister of Public Works and Housing called on ministry-affiliated public construction companies to prepare 100 units, which are now now available. The minister also asked these companies’ managers to immediately procure more of the prefabricated housing units and provide them to the government. The public construction companies affiliated with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing are the General Housing Establishment, the General Company for Building and Construction, the General Company for Water Projects, the General Company for Electrical and Communication Works, and the General Company for Roads and Bridges. 

On February 19, the minister told Al-Watan that the above companies, in cooperation with military-affiliated construction companies, had begun manufacturing 300 one- and two-room prefabricated units. However, in other statements, put that number at 350. He added the units would be ready within a month. The military construction companies affiliated with the Ministry of Defence are the Military Housing Establishment and the Military Construction Establishment. 

Confusion over the number of units emerged in an exceptional session by the Council of Ministers on March 4. The session aimed to discuss “the special procedures for programmes to implement the national action plan and move to the recovery phase for addressing the impacts of the earthquake”. During this session, ministers stressed quick preparation and installation of some 400 “rooms”. The rooms would be fully equipped and distributed to Lattakia and Aleppo governorates as temporary housing for residents impacted by the earthquake. Notably, the ministerial session referred in its discussion to prefabricated “rooms”, rather than to one- or two-room standalone housing units. This could help to explain the increase in the stated number from 300 units to 400 rooms. 

The prefabricated housing units location

The Minister of Public Works and Housing also stated on February 20 that he had been given direct orders to determine sites for constructing buildings in the Aleppo and Lattakia governorates to accommodate 300 apartments in the residential projects implemented by the GHE. Based on the minister’s words, these apartments appear like the prefabricated housing units.

The pro-regime Athr Press news website reported on February 22 that 50 housing units were allocated for Lattakia and would be distributed to three centres: Damserkho and Al-Gharaf in Lattakia city and Al-Naqaa in Jabla. Each centre is between 16 and 20 square metres. 

It is unclear where Aleppo’s share of prefabricated housing units will be located.

The prefabricated housing units cost 

The deputy head of engineering in Aleppo’s Chamber of Industry told the official Al-Baath newspaper on February 23 that Syrian industrialists had submitted tenders for building the prefabricated housing units. Each unit would cost at most SYP 20 million, equivalent to approximately USD 2,700 (1 USD/SYP 7,400 on the black market). 

That same day, Al-Watan quoted an engineering expert who said that relying on local companies is better as it would be easier to transport the finished housing units and install them in their allocated locations. The expert added that there is no major difference in costs between prefabricated and ordinary housing units. For both, the cost per square metre is SYP 700,000-800,000, meaning a 100-square-metre unit would cost about SYP 80 million, or USD 11,000. 

By that logic, a one-room, 25-square-metre prefabricated unit would cost SYP 20 million, in line with the numbers reported by Al-Baath. 

According to the expert quoted in Al-Watan, such units are desirable because they are quick to set up, safe, and designed to resist earthquakes. He also stressed that the government should consider what to do with these housing units in the long-term – including whether they will be converted into permanent housing, which may lead residents to expand them and add certain modifications such as additional storeys. Such modifications could someday lay the foundations for new informal settlements. 

Shelter Centres for Earthquake-Impacted Residents in Idlib

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Providing shelter for people whose homes were damaged during the February 6 earthquake remains an ongoing challenge for NGOs in Syria. 

The Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), affiliated with the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group that controls most of the Idlib governorate, has taken on the role of coordinator to direct the response to the dozens of shelter centres that have since appeared, most of them set up in chaos. 

According to a map by the SSG’s General Directorate of Humanitarian Affairs, 52 temporary shelter centres were set up in Idlib and distributed to NGOs responding to the disaster. These centres now house more than 7,500 families or around 37,500 people. Most of these centres were on publicly owned or endowment properties, such as schoolyards, parks, mosques and playgrounds. Others were old, existing encampments already housing people displaced from other parts of Syria. With the owners’ approval, some temporary shelter centres were also set up on privately owned properties. 

According to statistics from the SSG’s Emergency Response Committee, as of March 02, some 10,210 families have been impacted by the earthquake. Not all of them are living in the temporary shelter centres, however. Some stay with relatives, while others erected tents near their destroyed and damaged homes. 

Meanwhile, more than 690 Syrians moved from Turkey to the temporary shelter centres in Idlib as of February 26, according to the General Directorate of Humanitarian Affairs. Ankara had allowed Syrians residing in earthquake-damaged parts of Turkey to return temporarily to Syria in what has come to be known as “earthquake vacation”. According to statistics from the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing, around 15,000 Syrians crossed into Idlib on such trips as of March 01. 

Of the 52 shelter centres, 23 are in Harem and its surrounding countryside, which suffered massive earthquake damage. In that city alone, 35 buildings fully collapsed, and 360 were cracked, killing around 500 people. The surrounding countryside saw the collapse of a newly-built residential project in the town of Basania, killing 200 people. 

Most shelter centres lack essential services such as water, sewage and electricity. Some NGOs have resorted to providing portable bathrooms, installing tanks for drinking and cleaning water, and covering the floors of some centres with gravel. Others set up tents, pour cement floors, and dig waterways to drain sewage water. 

NGOs have also given out tents, mattresses, blankets and meals in coordination with the General Directorate of Humanitarian Affairs to ensure aid reaches all the shelter centres. That said, there is a lack of coordination on the ground, with more than one NGO often distributing aid in one centre. 

Notably, the price of tents has doubled in Idlib due to the huge demand from individuals and NGOs. For example, a medium-quality locally-made tent went from USD 150 to USD 350 after the earthquake. These tents are usually made locally by metalworkers who fashion the iron poles and cut the canvas and plastic insulation. The increased prices have come alongside worsened quality as workers use poorer quality canvas and plastic and employ lower manufacturing standards to keep up with demand. 

The aid response has varied from one area of Idlib governorate to another. Help has still not reached the Al-Maland, Marand, Al-Najia and Badama villages in the countryside west of Jisr Al-Shughour, where residents still urgently need tents. Many of them have been forced to sleep out in the open. 

It is unclear what will happen to the residents of Idlib’s temporary shelter centres in the long term and how long they will reside there. No real steps have been taken to set up new housing for them that is organised and serviced by quality infrastructure. There are also still no plans for restoring damaged homes. Many people now living in these shelters fear they will simply become new camps, added to the dozens of existing camps for forcibly displaced people who came to Idlib from elsewhere in Syria. 

Armanaz in Idlib after the Earthquake

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The local council in the Idlib governorate city of Armanaz has called on residents to submit requests to inspect their homes in earthquake-damaged buildings so that the council could send earthquake damage assessment committees to check on the houses. According to The Syria Report correspondent, 650 such requests were submitted. 

These committees were formed in cooperation with the Engineers’ Syndicate in Idlib, the Directorate of Technical Services and the Ministry of Local Administration, part of the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) run by the Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham hardline Islamist group. 

The destruction in Armanaz extended across the newly-built parts of the city and the old city centre, composed of stone houses dating back to various historical periods. The oldest ones contain Byzantine architectural elements. 

According to the damage assessment committees and the Armanaz local council, 11 multi-storey buildings in the city have fully collapsed, containing a total of 135 apartments. Another 36 old homes also fully collapsed. Three multi-storey buildings containing 26 apartments and 60 old houses became at risk of collapse and required demolition. Finally, 26 multi-storey buildings and 60 old houses are cracked, which now require evacuation and restoration work. 

The old city centre: A special case

Destruction from the February 6 quake impacted several neighbourhoods of old Armanaz: Al-Talla, Al-Jabbana, Al-Khodhor, Al-Kharajia, Al-Wadi and Al-Karasi, all of which date back to more than 200 years ago. Three buildings in Al-Jabbana collapsed fully, alongside one home in Al-Kharajia. Meanwhile, Al-Talla, composed of 162 old houses, was the most heavily damaged neighbourhood in the old city, with 35 homes that fully collapsed. Another 45 homes in the area cracked, are now uninhabitable, and cannot be restored. 

The layout of these old houses helped to limit the number of victims, as most of them contained an inner courtyard or garden where residents sought refuge during the earthquake. Al-Talla neighbourhood consists of old Arab-style stone houses with wooden or earthen roofs, though some have concrete roofs. The walls are constructed with what is known as “dak” stone, each about a metre thick and composed of small- and medium-sized stones and earth. 

The alleyways in the old city centre are too narrow for heavy machinery to enter and remove the rubble. The architecture of the old houses there, which consist of arches and vaults, and the construction materials pose challenges to restoring them, some of which are historically valuable. 

Removing collapsed or at-risk houses is also difficult, as many homes are attached and have shared walls. In addition, most residents of these neighbourhoods have limited income and may be unable to afford restoration work or rubble removal. Engineers have warned that leaving these old houses as they are and allowing further exposure to rain and other weather conditions will only exacerbate their disrepair. 

Some engineers have suggested removing several neighbourhoods altogether, which other engineers have rejected. In the meantime, many residents cling to their houses. Local activists say the old neighbourhoods contain important historical sites, including houses, mosques and vaults that date back to various eras and represent the heritage of Armanaz. Some activists have launched a call for relief efforts to help restore the old city centre. 

Some engineers have also suggested implementing the old zoning plans for Armanaz from the 1980s and 1990s, which include constructing wide streets in some old neighbourhoods of the city not classified as historic and compensating residents whose homes would be in the way of those streets. 

Removing the earthquake rubble

Work is ongoing to remove the earthquake rubble in Armanaz. The streets have already been cleared, and debris has been transported to a designated dumping spot. The privately owned Green Energy company, which brings electricity from Turkey and supplies it to Idlib, has repaired electrical lines and replaced broken poles. The local water unit is also restoring the water network and sealing off water flow to demolished buildings to prevent leakage. 

The International Humanitarian Relief Association (IYD), a Turkish NGO, has worked alongside the Syria Civil Defense (known as the White Helmets) to remove rubble from Armanaz and neighbouring Malas and Kafr Takharim and deposit it in designated spots. The IYD also employed around 50 workers to break down the rubble and extract iron and other valuable materials such as aluminium and wood. These were then sold, and the proceeds were given to the owners of those fallen buildings. 

But as for restoring the cracked buildings and homes that can be restored, there still has not been any funding. The SSG-run Ministry of Local Administration issued instructions for repairing such buildings and homes, which must be done under the supervision of the Engineers’ Syndicate. Owners of damaged houses are the ones who must bear the costs of restoration work, while for multi-storey apartment buildings, the residents all share the costs.  

Civil housing initiatives

Armanaz has led the way in social and civil initiatives and has prior experience in such work. In 2017, intense regime airstrikes damaged 127 houses in the city, 70 of which were destroyed, killing 56 people. Syrian expatriates from Armanaz donated to those impacted by the destruction and helped them restore their homes. A similar effort occurred after the February 6 earthquake, with expatriates from the city contributing to residents of damaged homes and victims’ families. 

Armanaz residents, in recent days, also launched the “Seed of Goodness” project to direct aid coming in from donors, especially from expatriates. The project also unifies relief efforts for a permanent housing shelter for earthquake-impacted residents, especially the city’s lowest-income families. In its first stage, the project aims to construct 20 apartments. Volunteers also hope to license a housing association to manage the construction work, which is moving quickly as land for the project has already been purchased, and building and street plans are put in place.

Earthquake-Related Damage in Rural Aleppo Governorate

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The recent earthquake caused extensive damage to parts of the Aleppo governorate under the control of various armed opposition, including Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).

This article will delve into the impacts of the earthquake on Souran, Al-Atareb and Afrin and the reasons behind the damages in the cities. 

Souran

Souran, located north of the city of Aleppo, has remained under opposition control since 2012, though it did not witness heavy regime bombardment or fighting relative to other parts of the country. The earthquake killed 33 people in Souran after they were trapped under the rubble of their homes. More than half of them were displaced people from rural parts of the Idlib governorate, while the rest were originally from the city. 

According to an official from the Souran Local Council, which is affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government, the earthquake destroyed 80 buildings, including some single-storey homes that were built more than 40 years ago. However, most buildings that fully collapsed were constructed within the past decade and had multiple storeys. Some 110 buildings in Souran are at risk of collapse from the earthquake and require demolition, while 180 buildings were partially damaged and need restoration work. In addition, four mosques, two main water cisterns, and six schools, including a Quran school, were badly damaged.  

Most of the buildings that were damaged, whether fully or partially, were constructed without licences, according to the local council official. The council had become unable to control the rapid trend of informal construction. 

The Souran Local Council did not open any shelter centres after the earthquake, but did receive some aid, including tents, from NGOs operating in opposition territory. The council distributed these tents to those in need, who set them up in front of their damaged homes. The city came to resemble an encampment. 

The area’s brittle soil and the lack of a rocker layer near the surface are one of the main reasons why these homes collapsed. Souran is in an arid region; its soil is around 20 metres thick. The most suitable houses for such an environment are one-storey homes with adequately studied and reinforced concrete foundations. In practice, however, such homes are more expensive to build, which many residents and displaced people in the area cannot afford, especially after years of war and the country’s acute economic crisis. 

Afrin

The city of Afrin is located in the northwestern part of Aleppo governorate and is the administrative centre of its region. The entire area had been controlled by the majority-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from 2012 until 2018 before Turkish-backed opposition forces seized the area during Operation Olive Branch. The fighting displaced a large portion of the area’s original Kurdish residents. Afrin Local Council is currently responsible for the city administratively and services and is affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government.

Contrary to what happened in the rural town of Jandares in Afrin, which saw the most severe earthquake damage in Syria’s opposition-held areas, only four residential buildings fully collapsed in Afrin city. As a result, 16 people were killed. In addition, 204 buildings saw extensive damage that made them uninhabitable and at risk of collapse. Another 3,458 buildings were partially damaged and needed reinforcement and restoration work, according to a local council official who spoke with The Syria Report. 

Most of the damage in Afrin city was concentrated along Sharaa Al-Faylat, a relatively newly constructed area that saw unlicensed construction during the period of YPG control. After 2018, contractors with close ties to opposition factions worked to expand the unlicensed construction in this area of the city, including vertical expansion by building additional storeys to existing buildings. 

The earthquake displaced 3,500 families to 40 shelter centres and tented encampments within the city and its outskirts, which the local council had set up. Some shelter centres and camps can accommodate 300 families, while others are only big enough for 30-40 families. Other families set up camps near their houses. 

Al-Atareb

Al-Atareb is among the largest cities in the rural western Aleppo governorate and is located near the administrative border with Idlib. The city is controlled by the HTS-affiliated Syrian Salvation Government (SSG). 

Regime forces have waged repeated aerial and artillery bombardment campaigns on Al-Atareb since 2013. The most infamous massacre there was carried out by Russian forces, which fired highly destructive missiles on the city’s centre, including its souk, in late 2017. Over 100 civilians were killed in the attack, and dozens of residential and commercial buildings were destroyed. Many other buildings that remained intact were nevertheless cracked. Regime forces also hit the city hard during its final military campaign in the area in 2019-2020. 

In addition to the direct damage to urbanisation and infrastructure, the bombing also caused indirect damage, represented by the disturbance of the soil and the foundations of buildings, which helps to explain the severe impact of the earthquake on the city. During the quake, 200 buildings fully collapsed, including single-storey houses and multi-storey apartment blocks. Another 300 buildings partially collapsed. The damage killed around 250 people and injured 500. 

Hundreds of impacted families headed to nearby shelter centres set up by the SSG, while others left the city and went to camps located further north along the border with Turkey (most of the latter were previously displaced families not originally from Al-Atareb). Most city residents set up tents near their partially and fully damaged homes, as well as in public squares and streets. Non-governmental, local initiatives played the most significant role in distributing aid to those impacted by the quake, according to The Syria Report’s correspondent in the area. 

Explained: Issues with the Syrian Construction Code’s Earthquakes Appendix

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The Syrian Arab Code for the Design and Implementation of Reinforced Concrete Structures and its earthquakes appendix sets strict standards for construction. However, after the recent earthquake, the damage to buildings licensed under the code raises questions about its effectiveness.

The code and its appendix require specific steps to be followed when constructing an earthquake-resistant building, including criteria on the type of iron reinforcements, the portion of concrete in square metres, and the ratios for concrete mixes, as well as information regarding the design of the structural sequence, i.e. the distribution of the building foundations, retaining walls, and load-bearing shear walls. After completing the design, which indicates that a planned building complies with the standards of the earthquake appendix, it must be submitted to the local administrative unit before obtaining a construction permit. 

The Engineers Syndicate and the local administrative unit are subsequently responsible for supervising adherence to the code during the various stages of construction. 

When digging begins at the construction site, the builders – usually the contractors – submit soil samples for testing at specialised civil engineering labs affiliated with public universities or government institutions. The records of these test results are documented in an official register that can later be referenced. The foundation design and concrete mixes for the planned building may be modified according to the test results. As the construction process continues, the builder must also present samples of the concrete mix to officially accredited labs to test whether they adhere to the descriptions within the design study. These labs then issue official reports either approving or rejecting the concrete mixes. Like the soil samples, the results are recorded in an official register that can be referenced later. 

In short, even considering the cases of negligence and corruption, strict criteria still exist for implementing the code during the design and construction process. Such rigorous standards mean we must examine the code to understand why many licensed buildings collapsed in the earthquake.  

First, there is a purely technical issue in the code: the earthquakes appendix uses a cacophony of different scales to measure earthquake intensity, energy, and size, such as the Mercalli intensity scale, the peak ground acceleration (PGA) measured in metre per second squared, the PGA in square centimetres per second squared, and the PGA attributed to the gravitational acceleration scale. PGA measures the ground acceleration during earthquake shaking in a given location.

These scales measure different seismic events using various methods with no direct relationship between them. As such, the earthquake appendix appears to be a mix of scales borrowed from various international construction codes with no clear justification or reason for using them. Remarkably, the appendix leaves out the widely used Richter scale entirely.

Beyond the cacophony of scales, there is an even bigger problem. Part H of the earthquake appendix states that Syria’s most seismically dangerous areas are located in the country’s west, where the PGA measures 300-400 centimetres per second squared during an earthquake. Yet, the appendix requires residential construction designs in these areas to resist a maximum PGA of only 300 centimetres per second squared. It is unclear why the code does not require resistance to a PGA of 400, as expected in these regions. 

Because it is difficult to use these complex scales in the design process for earthquake-resistant buildings, engineers hoping to obtain construction permits in western parts of the country design their buildings to resist magnitude-6 quakes on the Richter scale. Theoretically, this is roughly equivalent (albeit with much simplification) to a PGA of 300 centimetres per second squared. In either case, permits are granted for residential buildings in high-density parts of western Syria so long as they can resist magnitude-6 earthquakes, even though the area is at risk of 6.5-magnitude earthquakes and higher. 

The code also requires that soil at the excavation level of a building’s foundations be tested but does not require any geological study of the construction site. Such a study would mean examining the geological characteristics beneath the foundation level, which is essential because there may be hollow spaces, aquifers, and sandy, unstable soil in areas close to seismic faults below the construction site. Earthquakes can loosen these underground layers, causing the buildings above them to collapse regardless of how earthquake-resistant they are according to the Syrian Arab Code standards. 

The code also fails to account for construction time. Construction in Syria usually takes a long time due to funding issues, complicated bureaucracy, and the need for security approvals. Construction can span decades for public sector projects, social housing and cooperative housing. In such cases, the concrete structure of the built unit remains exposed and unprotected from the weather for long periods. High humidity in coastal areas may erode cement surfaces and cause iron to rust. When construction does resume, no new inspection is done on the concrete structure, leaving the completed buildings vulnerable to collapse in an earthquake. 

Idlib: Earthquake Lays Bare Issue of Informal Construction

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In Syria, the earthquake that struck the country on February 06 caused 819 buildings to collapse fully and 5,890 to collapse partially in the Idlib governorate. The damage killed 2,114 people, according to statistics issued by the Syrian Salvation Government’s (SSG) Emergency Response Committee (ERC) on February 23. 

This article will explore the reasons for those residential building collapses in the cities of Salqin and Harem, as well as the village of Basania, which all saw a similar pattern of informal urban expansion in recent years to meet the huge demand for housing from people forcibly displaced by the war.

 Salqin

In Salqin, a city in the northwestern part of the Idlib governorate, 33 buildings collapsed entirely and 60 buildings partially. More than 500 people were killed, including around 400 people originally from the city. The remaining victims were people who had been displaced to Salqin from other parts of the country, according to the ERC’s statistics. 

Because Salqin sits along the Syrian-Turkish border, Russian and Syrian regime warplanes did not target the city with aerial bombardment, making the area a relatively safe refuge for displaced Syrians. However, the relocation of internally displaced populations led to massive overcrowding in the city. By the end of 2022, Salqin had a population of 200,000 people, according to local opposition authorities, from only 75,000 in 2004, the year of the last official census. 

The earthquake did not damage old houses built before 2011. Instead, destruction was concentrated in newer, informal housing areas on the city’s outskirts that did not meet structural safety standards. Much of the damage was in Al-Qusour and Al-Sulaikha neighbourhoods and opposite Al-Rifia School in Sadoun Square, which is no longer functioning. 

The city witnessed widespread informal urbanisation in response to increased demand for housing by people displaced to opposition-held areas of Syria. Most of the buildings that had collapsed – whether fully or partially – were newly constructed, all unlicensed, and had at least four storeys. Yet, no proper engineering studies were conducted to determine whether certain buildings could bear additional storeys. 

Outside of Salqin, the damage extended to 25 towns and villages, including Al-Hamzia, where 50 homes collapsed; Taloul, where 40 homes collapsed; and Azmarin, where 14 collapsed. These towns and villages are located along the Orontes River, where the soil is soft and unsuitable for safe construction. 

Most people who fled their homes after discovering cracks in their buildings moved into 17 shelter centres in Salqin and the surrounding areas. Most of these centres were mosques and camps.  

Harem

Like Salqin, Harem, a city in the rural northwestern part of the Idlib governorate, also witnessed incoming waves of displacement during the conflict. More than 70,000 people relocated to the city by late 2022, according to local estimates, from 12,000 residents in 2004. 

The resettlement of displaced populations led to the widespread unlicensed construction of entire informal neighbourhoods. These areas faced massive damage during the earthquake, especially the neighbourhoods of Karam Al-Marad and Al-Qasha. The local council in Harem counted 35 buildings that collapsed fully and 360 that sustained cracks. 

Around 500 people were killed during the earthquake, including more than 100 people from one building alone. The Al-Bakhara Building was constructed in 2018 without a licence on privately owned land that a contractor had purchased. The building, distinguished by its location overlooking the Amaq Valley, had six storeys, each with four apartments that the contractor sold to doctors, medical workers, and NGO employees. 

Those who survived the earthquake in Harem moved in with city residents whose homes were still safe. Another 400 families moved to four shelter centres in the city and its outskirts. 

Basania investment project

The town of Basania, which is located west of Harem, hosts a new residential investment development known as Al-Batal Residential Project. The project, located in the northeast of the city, consisted of 20 five-storey apartment buildings. 

Except for just one building, the entire residential project collapsed fully, killing 200 people, according to the ERC’s statistics. What remained of the building was at risk of collapsing fully. Teams from the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, demolished the building by detonating its foundations. 

Construction on the Basania project, which is on private agricultural land, broke ground in 2017. Three investors participated in the project without obtaining licences from municipal or engineering authorities. Two of those investors were killed when the project’s buildings collapsed.

The cost of each of the project’s 100-square-metre apartments was USD 4,000 to purchase, i.e. USD 40 per square metre. The homes were considered cheap, given that construction costs for other apartments in the same area were around 55 USD per square metre at the time. 

It appears that the low prices were due to poor construction and materials. Civil Defense teams reported that they faced difficulties during their post-earthquake rescue work in the project due to the fragility of the roofs, columns, and shear walls, according to The Syria Report‘s correspondent in the area. The walls of the apartments had been turned to gravel after the earthquake, impeding rescue operations. 

The SSG’s Ministry of Justice and the various Idlib governorate branches of the Syndicate of Syrian Engineers formed a committee to investigate why the project collapsed. The ministry took samples from the reinforced concrete of the collapsed buildings for study. 

Aleppo: Earthquake Destroys Buildings Previously Damaged by Regime Bombing, While Pro-Iran Militias Remove the Rubble

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In Aleppo, damage from the devastating February 6 earthquake centred around the city’s eastern neighbourhoods. There, most of the buildings that fell had already been cracked, while some were at risk of collapse due to previous bombardment by regime forces in the area. 

During a press conference on February 19, the governor of Aleppo said that 53 buildings had collapsed entirely due to the earthquake. A source in the Aleppo City Council told The Syria Report that 50 of the 53 collapsed buildings were in formerly opposition-held parts of east Aleppo. Some of these collapsed buildings were uninhabitable, abandoned and already at risk of falling. In addition, in eastern Aleppo, ten mosques and many school buildings partially collapsed, all of which had previously been damaged by regime bombings in the area.

The other three collapsed buildings, of 53, were reportedly old and dilapidated in the Saif Al-Daula and Al-Azizia neighbourhoods in the city centre. No collapses were recorded in Aleppo’s western neighbourhoods that were spared the armed conflict of recent years. 

The governor of Aleppo said in his press conference on February 19 that 220 at-risk buildings were demolished, but he did not specify the locations of those buildings. The Syria Report correspondent said that at least 58 buildings were destroyed in the eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo until February 18. The correspondent noted that Aleppo City Council work crews had demolished some of those buildings on recommendations from the construction safety committees. The council also ordered dozens of residents in other cracked buildings to evacuate so that those could be demolished. 

Notably, joint work crews affiliated with militias loyal to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC): the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Failaq Mudafain Halab (Aleppo Defenders Corps) handled the demolition of most of those 58 buildings. They swept away a portion of the rubble to reopen local streets. Failaq Mudafain Halab is considered among the main components of Hezbollah in Syria. It has military, security and public services authority over large parts of Aleppo city. After the earthquake, the PMF sent Failaq Mudafain Halab work crews and equipment to help clear the rubble. These joint work crews are now demolishing additional buildings in Al-Ferdaus and Jisr Al-Haj neighbourhoods of east Aleppo. 

East Aleppo is home to large informal settlements where opposition forces took hold between 2012 and 2016. Regime forces besieged the area, bombarding it with missiles, heavy artillery fire, and airstrikes by the Syrian and Russian air forces. Direct bombardment destroyed vast swathes of these neighbourhoods. 

After regime forces retook east Aleppo with the help of loyalist militias, neighbourhoods there saw frequent building collapses due to the lasting effects of indirect bombing damaged by missiles. Most of these damages were not immediately visible, impacting the building foundations due to the loosened ground soil. The bombing also destroyed the water and sewage networks, thus allowing water to leak into the foundations of the buildings, thus exposing them to danger. In November 2022, the Aleppo City Council began a campaign to demolish 1,500 structures at risk of collapse. 

The city council allocated more than 200 shelters for survivors of the recently collapsed buildings and for people who needed to leave homes put at risk of collapse by the earthquake. These shelters were mainly in east Aleppo schools, mosques and gymnasiums. Some were also located in the silk market in Al-Furqan neighbourhood of western Aleppo city. Residents impacted by the evacuations were moved to 150 apartments that the city council had allocated as temporary housing in the Masaken Hananou neighbourhood and 25 apartments belonging to the Directorate of Railways in the Rehabilitation and Training Building in Al-Shaikh Taha. 

However, these shelters were not enough to accommodate all those fleeing their cracked homes, fearing earthquake aftershocks. Two weeks after the earthquake, hundreds of families are still sheltering in tents beneath the Jisr Al-Shaar, Jisr Maisaloun, and Jisr Al-Haj bridges, the latter of which was damaged in the quake. Some people also set up tents on sidewalks and in public parks. 

Some families told The Syria Report’s correspondent that they preferred to stay in tents because the shelters are overcrowded and the services they provide are unsatisfactory. They added that corruption and favouritism were rampant in distributing aid supplies. Some people said that the temporary housing in Masaken Hananou and the Rehabilitation and Training Building was discriminatory and required wasta (connections in Arabic) with state employees, city and governorate councils, the Baath Party or loyalist militias, which often involves the payment of bribes. 

Syria’s Public Safety Committees After the Earthquake

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After the devastating earthquake on February 6, 2023, hundreds of public safety committees tasked with assessing the structural safety of damaged and cracked buildingswere were established in regime-controlled parts of Syria. However, it appears these committees have been disorganised due to differences in affiliation, powers, and the geographical areas they cover. 

Local Administration Law No. 107 of 2011 says administrative unit councils have the right to form a number of different permanent and temporary committees to perform certain duties. These committees, often known as public safety committees, may include council members or other individuals and often fall into several different categories depending on their specialisation. 

Among these committees include those specialised in engineering, which issue structural safety reports for buildings or the proportion of destruction in a given area. These committees may be structural safety committees, technical committees, structural coherence committees, construction and urbanisation committees or damaged building assessment committees. There is no unified set of criteria for naming these committees or delineating their tasks. 

Some of these committees existed before the earthquake. Local administrative units, especially those in areas previously damaged by conflict-related fighting, relied on these commitees to determine the degree of risk of damaged buildings and provide recommendations to remove, reinforce, or preserve these buildings.

By February 20, there were 100 such committees in each of the Aleppo and Lattakia governorates and 65 in the Hama governorate, according to statements by the Minister of Public Works and Housing. The committees examined around 22,000 buildings in Lattakia, 12,000 in Aleppo, and 7,000 in Hama. Not all new committees belong to local administrative units. Some are affiliated with syndicates, government ministries, NGOs, or universities. Some are a mixture of the above, and include members of various prior entities. 

The most important of these newly formed committees are mixed. Named “structural safety teams” by the Minister of Public Works and Housing, they include members from the governorate branches of the Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate (SES), engineering consultants for the Ministry of Housing’s General Company for Engineering Studies (GCES), and members of the already exist structural safety committees. On February 13, the minister told state-owned newspaper Tishreen on February 13 that these teams are geographically spread out in earthquake-affected areas. 

He called on citizens wishing to check on the structural safety of their homes to consult with these teams through their governorate councils. 

According to the minister, these teams are working to inventory and assess the damage to all government and residential facilities and provide technical support and engineering advice on structural safety. The minister added that another of the teams’ duties is to present a separate report for each governorate on the scale of damages and any needed recommendations. 

The GCES general manager told Tishreen on February 16 that the company had put together a working guide for the structural safety teams, with the goal of rapid initial assessment of structural safety of residential and public buildings affected by the earthquake, as well as their usability. The teams would also submit any necessary forms for collecting data. Consequently, the teams examined hundreds of buildings in Lattakia, Aleppo, Hama, Tartous and Damascus governorates. They evacuated buildings at risk of collapse and identified which structures could be restored. 

Meanwhile, some of the new inspection committees were formed in coordination between the SES and the Syria Trust for Development, headed by Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma al-Assad. 

Engineering department teachers at Tishreen University in Lattakia also formed committees to inspect cracked homes at the homeowners’ requests. Al-Baath University in Homs also created its own inspection committees to check on its university buildings and residential units. The Ministry of Education put together committees to inspect school buildings and assess any damage, white various civil initiatives, including volunteer engineers, formed committees to check affected structures. 

These newly formed committees are similar to the old ones in that they perform field inspections of buildings in affected areas, determine the status of each building and provide recommendations to administrative units to leave the buildings alone, restore, evacuate or demolish them. 

Many people staying in shelters in Aleppo and Lattakia after leaving their cracked homes are still waiting for the committees to visit their houses and assess the risks. 

These assessments have short-term impacts on citizens regarding whether they remain in the shelter centres or return to their homes. According to official statements, committees in governorates affected by the earthquake have received tens of thousands of requests to inspect cracked homes.

The committees seal the buildings at risk of collapse while waiting for administrative unit demolition crews to demolish them and sweep away the rubble. Sealing a building involves placing a sign with red wax warning residents not to return home. 

Explained: Earthquake-resistant Building Design Basics

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In the Syrian Arab Code for the Design and Implementation of Reinforced Concrete Structures, there is an appendix on the basic principles for earthquake-resistant building design. It specifies the construction methods to prevent total or partial collapse during earthquakes. In theory, if the code is followed during the design and implementation process, a building will remain intact even if an earthquake’s magnitude on the Richter scale reaches the upper expected limit for that area. 

The code lays out four steps that must be followed to construct earthquake-resistant buildings: 

  1. A building site’s seismicity (or maximum expected earthquake magnitude) must first be determined. The most significant factors in a site’s seismicity are its proximity to active seismic sources, the seismic history and the frequency of earthquakes in the past 50 years. To help determine seismicity, the earthquake appendix includes a seismic map of Syria created in cooperation with the General Establishment for Geology and Mineral Resources and the Atomic Energy Commission of Syria.The map divides Syria into seismic regions according to the magnitude of expected earthquakes, which are weakest in the east and more severe as the map moves further west. Zone 0 is not considered at risk of significant earthquakes and has a maximum expected magnitude of less than 4.8 on the Richter scale. Zone 1, with a maximum expected magnitude of 5.4, is not at risk of deadly quakes. Zone 2 is at risk of moderate earthquakes of up to 6.1 on the Richter scale. Zone 3 can expect high-intensity earthquakes up to 6.5 on the Richter scale. Finally, Zone 4 is at the highest risk. It can expects devastating earthquakes of over 6.5 degrees of magnitude.

    The seismic map of Syria. Source: The earthquakes appendix to the Syrian Arab Code for the Design and Implementation of Reinforced Concrete Structures.

  2. The geological features and soil type of the building site must undergo study. The study includes the soil mechanics that determine a site’s cohesion and hardness (if it is rocky, clay-like or sandy). Each type has the potential to be compressed or fragmented and collapsed. The depth and dimensions for digging a building’s foundation are determined based on these soil types. This study is required in building design and obtaining a permit to begin construction work.
  3. The design stage of the building, according to the shape requirements, determines the structural sequence of construction, meaning the distribution of the building foundations, retaining walls, and the building height. For example, buildings in areas subject to over-6.1-magnitude earthquakes on the Richter scale may not be taller than 20 metres if using traditional construction methods or 49 metres for those with shear walls. Buildings with steel frames can be up to 73 metres tall.
  4. The design for the building’s earthquake resistance undergoes study using static methods (the impact of an earthquake on the base of a building only) and dynamic methods (the impact on the entire structure). For example, if the building is less than 73 metres tall, it must be designed according to static study methods. Those taller than 73 metres must also undergo dynamic study methods. 

Only buildings designed according to the above four steps are considered to comply with the earthquake-resistance appendix standards. Engineers and building contractors must apply the building code in their design studies when applying for a construction permit. The Engineers’ Syndicate and local administrative units oversee adherence to the code during the different stages of construction. 

Committees in Idlib Inspect Earthquake Damage

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A day after the February 6 earthquake, the Idlib branch of the Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate called all experienced engineers in Idlib, which is controlled by the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), to volunteer with damage assessment efforts. The engineers would inspect cracked buildings, assess their structural safety and determine whether they are habitable, should be evacuated or can be restored. 

The Free Engineers Syndicate was established in 2014 in opposition-held areas, and it has two branches; the Idlib branch and the Aleppo branch. In 2020, the Idlib branch was re-formed under the name of the Syrian Engineers Syndicate – Idlib Branch. A distinction must be made between this branch and another branch bearing the same name; Syrian Engineers Syndicate – Idlib Branch is active in regime-controlled areas of the Idlib governorate. In both cases, a similar organizational, administrative, and legal structure prevails in the two branches, with different political affiliations.

On February 7, the Engineers’ Syndicate, the SSG-run Ministry of Local Administration and Services, and the Idlib governorate’s Directorate of Technical Services formed the earthquake damage assessment committees of volunteer engineers. It deployed them to affected parts of Idlib. 

Each of these committees initially had four engineers. However, significant demand from residents to assess their cracked homes prompted that number to be reduced to three engineers. Two are engineering consultants who have been part of the Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate for at least ten years, and one is from the Directorate of Technical Services, who would be responsible for documentation and data collecting. Each committee is also accompanied by representatives from the municipal council technical offices in the areas where they assess the damage. Still, the groups rely on the experience of their members and simple engineering tools alone, without any modern technological tools. 

Local municipal councils told residents whose homes were damaged in the earthquake to sign up to receive an inspection from the engineering committees. The committees visited the most heavily damaged sites and examined cracked buildings. They focused on checking the structural integrity of the ground storeys–that is, any concrete elements supporting the structures, such as columns, bridges and foundations. 

The committees classified the buildings they inspected into four categories in their records: 

  1. Buildings marked as safe, undamaged, and acceptably habitable in their current condition without any restoration or retaining work; 
  2. Buildings that are habitable but in need of repair; 
  3. Buildings that are uninhabitable and require evacuation, which residents could only return to after restoration; 
  4. Buildings at risk of collapse that must be evacuated due to irreparable damage to the load-bearing structural elements. Buildings in this category must undergo another inspection and assessment by a central committee, which issues the final decision on whether or not to demolish it. The court then considers the decision before issuing a ruling to implement it. However, it is unclear how this central committee is formed. 

The earthquake damage assessment committees immediately began preparing technical reports for each damaged building they inspected. All committee members must sign each report. For example, in one working day, one committee inspected 17 buildings, ten of which needed to be evacuated, six deemed habitable, and another in need of demolition. 

The committees estimated that by February 19, in the city of Salqin alone, there were around 200 multi-storey buildings whose walls needed restoration. These buildings had an average of five storeys each. There were also about 200 multi-storey buildings requiring evacuation and restoration work and 15 needing complete demolition. Some 58 buildings in Salqin collapsed entirely due to the earthquake. 

There have been several obstacles for the committees, most notably the sheer size and urgency of their workload. Residents want to know whether they can return to their earthquake-damaged homes as quickly as possible. When the committees arrive in a given area, they often find dozens of residents waiting for them, pressuring the engineers to inspect their houses. Some of the damage to their homes were just small cracks in the walls, but nevertheless, residents are in fear. Residents often turned to engineers outside these committees to check on their homes. 

Explained: Earthquake Resistance in Syria’s Construction Code

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The Syrian Arab Code for the Design and Implementation of Reinforced Concrete Structures is a system for buildings to meet certain safety standards. Engineers and building contractors must adhere to this code during their study and design phases and when applying for their construction permits. The Syrian Engineers Syndicate (SES) and local administrative units oversee adherence to the code during the various stages of construction. 

The SES adopted the first version of the code in 1992, later developing and issuing a second version in 1995 that included measures for earthquake-resistant buildings. The syndicate worked in this regard with the government institutions and entities responsible for developing the country’s seismic map to determine the earthquake-related factors that must be considered during construction, based on the American Standard Building Code UBC-85 (Uniform Building Codes of 1985). 

In order to develop the conditions for earthquake resistance and keep up with international building codes, three appendices for Syria’s code were issued in 1996, 1997 and 2000. They included clarifications and conditions for designing earthquake-resistant buildings and evaluating existing structures and buildings, and rehabilitating them to be earthquake-resistant. 

The third version of this code, which was issued in 2004, has a main section that includes articles on designing reinforced concrete structures and 14 appendices as an integral part of the code. Appendix 2, titled “Designing and Implementing Earthquake-Resistant Buildings and Structures”, was developed by a committee of the Engineers Syndicate, Syrian universities, the General Establishment for Geology and Mineral Resources and the Atomic Energy Commission of Syria. 

In this appendix, there are four methods for designing earthquake-resistant structures depending on the nature and task of that structure. The first method, for small structures, is the simplest and relies on UBC-85. The second relies on UBC-97, which was simplified to comply with building materials and methods used in Syria. These first two methods are static and depend only on the impacts of earthquakes on the foundations of buildings. Meanwhile, the third method relies on response spectra dynamic analysis, that is, how the entire building structure responds to shaking during an earthquake. The fourth method uses temporal dynamic analysis, which considers an entire building structure’s response based on previous earthquakes. 

For example, if a building is less than 73 metres high, it must comply with one of the two static methods. But if it is 73 metres or higher, one of the two dynamic study methods is mandatory, in addition to the necessary static method. 

In 2013, the SES issued the second version of its earthquake appendix to prevent loss of life from building collapses and preserve the continuity of vital facilities. In this regard, the committee reviewed the first version. It made corrections, amendments and additions, relying on the International Building Code IBC-2009 and the ASCE-7 issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers. 

The 2013 version of this appendix includes nine chapters and five sub-appendices. Chapters one and two clarify and explain specific terms and definitions. Chapter three concerns various design standards and loads, most notably a construction site’s geological features, seismology, soil characteristics, construction methods and earthquake impacts. Chapter four includes methods for calculating the force of earthquakes’ effects on buildings, while chapter five lists methods for dynamic analysis such as ground movements, static spectra and temporal analysis. Chapter six mentions the lateral forces that may impact construction and alternative design methods. Conditions for building design come in Chapter seven, which details the precautions that must be taken in construction design with regard to architectural design, structural design, and requirements for reinforcement, foundations and distance between buildings. Chapter eight discusses special structures with certain uses, such as retaining walls and tanks. Finally, Chapter nine discusses soil types. 

The five appendices on earthquakes discuss (a) methods for affixing false ceilings, walls, glass fixtures and lighting, (b) seismic recording devices, (c ) how to calculate seismic load via static analysis, and (d) and (e) Syria’s seismic map and potential movement of the earth’s solid rock layer. 

The Impact of the Earthquakes on Lattakia

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Out of around 50 buildings that completely collapsed in Lattakia governorate, the massive earthquake on February 6 caused the collapse of around 16 buildings in Lattakia city and cracks in dozens of other buildings. Most of the fallen buildings had been constructed without licences in informal settlements and therefore did not meet earthquake safety standards. However, some had been built with licences in formally zoned areas, suggesting tampering with building materials and corruption during construction. 

 

Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi

In Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi informal neighbourhood south of Lattakia city, ten buildings collapsed, killing around 40 people. These had been multi-storey buildings of at least four storeys each, most of them entirely inhabited. Some of them were built 20 years ago, while others were built only five years ago. Cracks also appeared on at least 30 other buildings in Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi, some of which are at risk of collapse. Some buildings need an inspection by technical experts to determine whether they are safe. 

Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi is an unofficial Palestinian refugee camp located along the seafront in the southern part of Lattakia city. The camp was established in the 1950s via Decree No. 2316 on land expropriated for the General Authority for Palestine Arab Refugees (GAPAR), a body affiliated with what was called then the Ministry of Local Affairs and Labour, on real estate no. 1140. Before 2011, the camp was home to around 10,000 Palestinian refugees. Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi is informally constructed, with a high population density and cramped buildings. 

There is only one main street, known as the Sea Road. The 2.2-hectare neighbourhood suffers from service neglect and is considered one of the poorest areas of Lattakia. Another informal neighbourhood extends along its northern outskirts, known as Al-Ramal Al-Shamali. 

 

Project No. 10

In contrast with the informal Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi neighbourhood, two buildings also collapsed in the formal Project No. 10 area and its expansion zone. Project No. 10 is a zoned area within the expanded zoning plan for Lattakia city. The two collapsed buildings had been licensed, each consisting of five storeys. This project and its extension, located in the northeast of Lattakia city near the Eastern Corniche, are affiliated with Syria’s cooperative housing sector. Dozens of housing cooperative societies have built projects for their members in the area since the 1980s.

An additional, unlicensed building facing the entrance to Project No. 10 also collapsed, killing an entire family of seven. 

One of the Lattakia governorate’s Engineering Committees, which was formed after the earthquake and is tasked with inspecting buildings for structural safety, has evacuated ten buildings in Project No. 10 in the past several days due to cracks and other safety issues. Four of the cracked buildings are around 30 years old, while others are newer, built less than a decade ago. 

Residents told The Syria Report’s local correspondent that the implementing agencies did not adhere to engineering plans when implementing the construction project. The plans required earthquake-resistant shear walls to be built on all storeys but were eventually scrapped for upper storeys, mainly due to corruption and tampering with the quantities of construction materials available. 

 

Damserkho

Finally, three buildings fell in the Damserkho area at the northern entrance to Lattakia, killing around 20 people. One of the buildings was inside Damserkho, while the other two were on the outskirts of the neighbourhood. Cracks also appeared in at least ten buildings in the area.  

Though it is located within the expanded zoning plans for Lattakia, Damserkho contains informal settlements. Despite multiple attempts by the governorate to crack down, unlicensed construction is rampant in the area, due largely to building owners with strong ties to the security services and army bullying official institutions. 

All the earthquake-affected buildings in Damserkho were unlicensed or, if they were licensed, went against the terms of their building permits. For example, one collapsed building had been a residential block that included a large furniture store and had been licensed as a three-storey building. However, the building owner decided to add three more storeys without the proper permit. 

Jandares in Rural Afrin: The Most Severe Earthquake Damage in Opposition Territory

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Jandares, located in the rural Afrin area in the northwestern Aleppo governorate countryside and controlled by the opposition-run Syrian Interim Government (SIG), was almost destroyed in the February 06 earthquake, which rendered the town an uninhabitable disaster zone. The sheer number of people who died beneath hundreds of partially and fully destroyed homes indicates serious construction issues and a lack of even minimal earthquake safety standards. 

Around 800 people were killed in the town, with operations still underway to search for and remove bodies trapped beneath the rubble. Statistics released by the opposition-run Jandares Local Council indicate that 257 buildings fully collapsed, while 1,100 others have partially collapsed or now feature cracks. After operations to search for remaining survivors ended a few days after the earthquake, committees from the Civil Defense and Free Engineers Syndicate, which are active in opposition-held areas, began to study the conditions of all remaining buildings in the town. They identified which buildings were at risk of collapse and which would pose a critical danger to residents returning home. 

Temporary shelters were also set up for survivors from Jandares, within the town and the city of Afrin. However, most survivors sought refuge in the camps along the Syrian-Turkish border.

According to Syria’s 2004 census, about 14,000 people lived in Jandares, most of whom, like residents of Afrin, were Kurdish. In 2012, the majority-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) took over Jandares and most of the Afrin area. Later, in 2018, Turkish-backed National Army rebel factions took over the town in Operation Olive Branch, displacing many of the original Kurdish residents. Meanwhile, many IDPs were forcibly displaced to Jandares from other parts of Syria that had formerly been under opposition control, especially from rural Damascus, Homs, and Hama. By 2022, the town’s population reached 115,000 people, according to local council estimates. 

Most buildings in Jandares were unlicensed. Historically, the town is remote and has received little government or municipal attention. Jandares’ zoning plans are old and not adhered to by any local municipality, just as structural safety standards for construction were not followed during any period of control over the town, given its remote location.

Jandares could be divided into three main parts, according to a local correspondent for The Syria Report: the part built before 2011, the part built during YPG control in 2012-2018 and, finally, the part built during the current period of opposition control. Meanwhile, the first and second parts consist of mostly informal housing surrounding the old town centre. The third part is the largest and the most damaged by the earthquake. 

The informal settlements built in Jandares after 2012 were primarily constructed on private agricultural lands owned by the area’s original residents. After 2018, people newly displaced to the area bought some of those lands and built near-identical, unlicensed, multi-storey housing. Some other displaced people also seized some of the lands owned by those absent from the area and built on them similarly. In both cases, construction is done with the help of building contractors known locally as “building experts” or “concrete carpenters”. Such workers are people with construction experience but lack formal educational qualifications.  

Though the earthquake’s destruction centred on informal homes built after 2018, the damage hit all parts of Jandares. A structural engineer in the area told The Syria Report that, during the various periods of control over the town, no local municipality or independent engineering committee conducted soil tests or studied soil mechanics. Such studies help evaluate and analyse the physical and engineering characteristics of the soil in the given area and its ability to bear the weight of buildings. These studies could also determine the appropriate type of building foundation to avoid the risks of collapse while considering certain factors for earthquake protection. 

The engineer added that most of the building foundations in the town did not reach the rocky layer beneath the soil and that appropriate engineering methods were not followed. Multi-storey buildings, especially during the opposition control, did not take into account the additional load on the soil and did not feature appropriate foundations. Finally, the engineer added that, during no period of control of Jandares, no local authorities enforced mandatory construction permits that would take into account The Syrian Arab Code for the Design and Implementation of Reinforced Concrete Structures, which implement earthquake-resistant concrete reinforcements. Such reinforcements would have protected many buildings from collapse and limited the loss of life and property. 

The Free Engineers Syndicate branch in Aleppo governorate has tried since 2021 to impose a technical entity that would monitor licensing and construction in SIG-controlled areas. However, their attempt was unsuccessful amid an uncontrolled scramble to build homes amid pressure and high demand for housing in the area. 

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