Recovery from Turkey’s earthquake will take years

ALONG a road that snakes through the pine-covered hills north of Nurdagi, one of the towns devastated by the earthquake that struck Turkey in early February, bulldozers claw into the ground, clearing the way for new public housing. Once completed, the homes will accommodate some 450 displaced families. But much more will be needed. The tremors brought down over a thousand buildings across Nurdagi. The remainder are too damaged to remain standing. Not a single one of the larger buildings is safe, says a local official. Before it can rise again, the town as a whole, home to 40,000 people on the eve of the quake, will have to be torn down.“We will rebuild from the ground up,” Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pledged when he toured the disaster zone in February. “Give us a year.” Two months later, a fair share of the 200m tonnes of rubble that covered the area has been removed, and construction has begun on the outskirts of some towns, a drive across the region reveals. But the looming challenge is more daunting than Mr Erdogan suggests. Assuming he survives the coming presidential elections, scheduled for May 14th, Turkey’s leader will need much more than a year, and plenty of outside assistance, to make good on his promise.