1999 Kocaeli and Düzce, Turkey, Earthquakes
ABAG Lessons for Local Governments on Hazard Mitigation Strategies and Human Needs Response Planning

The 1999 Turkey earthquakes resulted in far more extensive damage and casualties than occurred in California's 1989 Loma Prieta or 1994 Northridge earthquakes. They provide several lessons for local governments that should not be ignored.

Principal Lessons - animated rollover

LESSON 1 - Mitigation guidelines may be developed centrally, but implementation of building codes and land use planning for new construction are the responsibility of local governments.
LESSON 2 - Human needs services are delivered in the context of other damage.
LESSON 3 - Local government staff are first to respond to disasters, not social service agencies or the central government.
LESSON 4 - Local governments need to plan to distribute data initially after the disaster, as well as for weeks and months as data are compiled.

Several themes emerge from the lessons of the 1999 Turkey earthquakes.

Principal Themes-

Training of local government employees is essential.
Local governments are the first to respond and must lead recovery.
The key local government role, and the need for leadership of local elected officials, is not unique to earthquakes, as the recent tragedies on September 11, 2001, illustrated.

VIEW the full 12-page ABAG report (an Adobe Acrobat file).

VIEW the 32-page technical report on human services data prepared by George Washinton University in conjunction with ABAG.

The U.S. Geological Survey has extensive additional information on these Turkey earthquakes.


ABAG, the Association of Bay Area Governments, is the regional planning and services agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. The development of these ABAG lessons from the 1999 Turkey earthquakes has been funded by Grant No. CMS-0085288 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), with additional support from The George Washington University and the Association of Bay Area Governments. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies.

Photos courtesy of T. Holzer, U.S. Geological Survey.

This page was last updated 8/25/03 by jbp.