Attachments
Introduction
The earthquake disaster in Türkiye has had a severe impact on the people living in the area, causing 41,020 deaths, as of February 19, 20231, and thousands of injuries and relocations. A total of 16 million people have been affected in 11 provinces.
Some 47,000 buildings were severely damaged, as well as roads, limiting access to the affected areas, specifically remote districts and villages. Hatay airport and İskenderun port sustained serious damage inhibiting their use in the first week of the disaster 4,5. As a result, there has been widespread displacement and disruption to livelihoods and market systems. The purpose of this rapid market assessment is to understand the current market conditions, identify the most critical needs, and assess the potential impact of the crisis on supply and demand. Accordingly, the study aims to suggest targeted interventions, explore how resource allocation can be optimised and propose ways of improving coordination in the field for the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance.
As a conclusion, the humanitarian crisis in territories that have suffered from the repercussions of the seismic event has had a severe impact on the market systems and has resulted in shortages of essential goods and increased prices, affecting both the availability and accessibility of goods and services. The most critical needs identified are food, shelter, water, and hygiene items. The findings suggest the level of destruction in Hatay is severe, markets are mostly closed and ATMs are not functional. Hence, the province requires close monitoring. Adıyaman is another province which is considered as risky in terms of market situation.
METHOD
Convenience sampling was used for the data collection of this study, based on the availability of Türk Kızılay field officers, who are residing in the affected area, between 10 to 14 February 2023. The survey included both open-ended and close-ended questions and aimed to collect observations from the staff. The study is not intended to be representative of the larger population affected by the event but rather present descriptive statistics.
In total, 93 observations were made in over 75 neighbourhoods, located in 16 districts of six provinces, four of them repeated in the same neighbourhood on different days. Graph 1 presents the distribution of observations according to province.
Since the data collection of this study was conducted right after the disaster, it has some limitations.
Transportation was prioritized for lifesaving needs; hence the geographical scope of the observations was narrow. There were 23 data collectors based in Gaziantep, who were affected by the earthquakes themselves. The majority of observations were received from this province, reflecting an early recovery state.
Results should be interpreted as indicative of the most recent situation in the affected area rather than definitive. Primary data will be complemented with follow-up studies. The secondary data and field reports are utilized to fill the information gaps in this paper.
To ensure data quality, during the data cleaning, if multiple observations were made on the same day and similar points were reported, the observations and points reported submitted last were kept and others were deleted. If observations made on the same day were conflicting with each other, the relevant data collector was contacted for verification. Also, the consistency of the replies given to closed-ended and open-ended questions is checked.