Monday's magnitude 7.8 earthquake and its hundreds of aftershocks are historic in scale and would be difficult for the best prepared government to manage. But the Turkish government has come under particularly sharp criticism.
"This government was just not prepared," says Soli Ozel, lecturer at Kadir Has University in Istanbul.
As of Thursday, fatalities from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria have surpassed 19,000, according to The Associated Press.
As Turkey's death toll rises — now more than 16,000 — so does criticism of the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and what many see as its lack of preparation and sluggish response to the tragedy. Even Erdogan himself has admitted "the first day we had some discomforts," before insisting to survivors near the quake's epicenter, "second day, and then today, the situation got under control."
But critics like Ozel point out that national funds meant for natural disasters like this one were instead spent on highway construction projects managed by associates of Erdogan and his coalition government.
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