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Earthquake-Related Damage in Rural Aleppo Governorate

28-02-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

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.

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

21-02-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

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.

The Impact of the Earthquakes on Lattakia

14-02-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

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

14-02-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

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.