While government officials avoided criticizing themselves for failing to prepare cities and their infrastructure against such disasters and instead chose to put the blame on nature and the people who built on watercourses, many analysts say there is no single individual responsible for the occurrence of this disaster as it was a result of the ignorance of citizens and the negligence of authorities for many years.Considering the fact that İstanbul has been managed by the same administration for the past 15 years, Sabah's Nazlı Ilıcak says precautions to prevent such disasters proved inadequate. “Has the local administration in İstanbul done everything necessary to improve the city's infrastructure to prevent natural disasters, or did it ignore structural problems out of concern about votes? If only İstanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş had made a statement acknowledging the shortcomings of his administration instead of putting the blame on nature,” says Ilıcak. Referring to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's statement that said watercourses will be rehabilitated, buildings constructed over watercourses will be vacated and citizens will not be allowed to build on watercourses so that the same situation does not occur again, Ilıcak says even this statement reveals that the local administration in İstanbul was negligent in failing to take those measures. “This disaster will be a lesson not only to the government but to the citizens who resist demolition of their illegally constructed houses and to the media who present the destruction of these houses as an injustice to the poor,” says Ilıcak.
“İstanbul had a dreadful flood. Thirty-two people lost their lives because of a natural disaster, combined with humanitarian and institutional shortcomings. The material damage is around $100 million. Traffic was paralyzed in the most important commercial areas. Who is guilty?” asks Milliyet's Taha Akyol. To find a answer to his question, he shows the deaths of seven female factory workers in İstanbul's Halkalı district who drowned when a van bringing them to work filled with floodwater. “The van they were in did not comply with vehicle safety regulations, as it was designed to carry goods and not people, not even animals. There are not even any seats in it. It has only one door. Water suddenly entered and filled the van, and the poor women died. If the vehicle had complied with vehicle safety regulations and was meant to carry people, they would have been able to save these women,” explains Akyol. The boss of the business where these women worked who provided them with such a vehicle, the poor infrastructure of the city and municipalities that do not take measures against many houses built around watercourses are all responsible for the deaths of these poor workers, he said.
According to another Sabah columnist, Emre Aköz, trying to place the blame of this disaster on someone is a common feature of populist and statist mentalities as they attempt to comfort themselves by finding a guilty party and punishing it. In Aköz's view, though, there is no single party that is guilty in such cases, and some disasters even have occurred as a result of well-intentioned efforts. “The problems of today are actually the solutions of tomorrow. İstanbul's rampant urbanization is the result of rapid and cheap industrialization efforts,” says Aköz.
