**Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has promised that replacements for buildings destroyed in the Turkish earthquake will be completed within 18 months. Public attention, however, remains focused bn bringing to book the builders — and perhaps politicians — responsible for putting up substandard homes and offices that collapsed like paper in the disaster. Gemini News Service reports on growing demands and shrinking hopes for punishment and compensation.

AFTER the tears and suffering, the recriminations.

Turkey's worst earthquake in 76 years, which shook a 300-kilometre stretch of the country's densely populated industrial north-west, has left a trail of mayhem: 6.000 buildings demolished, an estimated 50.000 people killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless.

And while the bulldozers are still tearing into piles of rubble in search of the missing, the shock of the survivors is turning to rage.

Confronted with the sight of cheaply constructed high-rise apartment buildings reduced to rubble, few could hold back their anger.

"For 20 years all we wanted was to have a flat of our own,” says lorry driver Hasan Karik, typical of many whose dreams of home ownership have ended. Karik struggles to make his family comfortable in a shabby tent on a muddy field.

With no insurance to cushion the loss, many are focusing their anger on rogue construction companies which have peddled dreams of cheap home

ownership, trading substandard materials and shoddy workmanship for fast profits, under the eyes of tolerant — some • woula argue conniving — officials.

One builder, former literature teacher Veil Gocer. is believed to have fled Turkey after the collapse of 500 of the 3.000 flats he constructed. Hundreds died.

Within days of the quake, angry crowds in the heavily-hit seaside town of Yalova attacked and destroyed Gocer's office and home, neither of which were damaged in the catastrophe.

Gocer blames local officials for failing to censure him for using substandard building materials.

"I was new to the business and didn't understand," he claims. "None of the officials who inspected my buildings told me what I was doing was wrong.

"Later I changed the materials I used and all those buildings survived the quake." , Unlike hundreds of developers who have disappeared as fast as their buildings collapsed. Gocer has offered to return to Turkey to face trial.

Even so. those whose dreams lie buried in the rubble of their collapsed homes will have an uphill struggle for justice.

'To conduct a prosecution we need evidence that the materials, construction system or workmanship were deficient." points out Ilkiz Okatan of the Istanbul Bar Association, the professional body for lawyers.

'The biggest problem is that rescue work ana the clearing of rubble to remove corpses are causing that evidence to be moved, he adds.

While some municipalities in Istanbul have carefully preserved samples of the collapsed buildings, possibly with prosecution in mind, in other areas officials have started dumping the cleared rubble at sea.

"We are starting to work with the justice department and the municipalities to ensure that proper procedures are followed so that those who lost their homes will be able to open civil cases against the builders." says Okatan.

These civil cases will be for compensation for the loss of relatives, loss and damage to property, injury and loss of earnings.

Okatan also envisages criminal prosecutions of local officials’ or politicians who have allowed the erection of substandard buildings: "Where we have evidence of wrong-doing, we will pass It on to the state prosecutor who will decide whether there is a case."

Given the scale of the disaster. the caseload is likely to be enormous.

"It will be the largest event in Turkish legal history and it will last for years." confirms Justice Ministry official Ahmet Kahraman.

While builders may face Jail sentences of up to eight years, few observers hold out much hope of substantial financial compensation.

"There could be tens of thousands of cases," Okatan observes. "I doubt if many of the builders have any insurance, so most survivors will get little compensation."

The prospects are made even bleaker by widespread suspicion that there may be little political support for moves to prosecute local politicians and officials who may be held responsible for much of the officially-sanctioned housing.