Evacuation ships to wait at sea off Istanbul in case of major quake - Turkey News

With a plan prepared by Interior Ministry in collaboration with several concerned agencies, evacuation ships will stay at sea off Istanbul to take earthquake victims out of the province in case of a possible major earthquake expected in the Marmara region.

The plan for Istanbul, one of Turkey’s most populated cities with 16 million inhabitants, has been prepared together by the Interior Ministry, the Istanbul Governor’s Office, Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) and the provincial gendarmerie command.

The plan proposes four ways of evacuation, including sea, air, land and railway routes, in case a 7.5-magnitude earthquake hits the region.

“There are 23 evacuation centers in Istanbul. First, we will gather people to these centers,” Metin Günal, the gendarmerie colonel told national TV broadcaster TRT.

The plan has marked some 18 cities in Turkey’s west, east and south regions as “supporting provinces.”

“As the second step, we will evacuate people from Istanbul to these ‘supporting cities’ by using all means of transportation,” Günal added.