Twelve people from the construction industry have been arrested in Turkey after thousands of buildings collapsed in the country’s south following Monday’s earthquake, local media reported on Saturday.

According to the Turkish news agency DHA, among those arrested are a businessman from Gaziantep province and 11 people from Sanlıurfa province.

The complete collapse of the buildings, revealing their poor design and leaving little to no chance for their occupants, is causing outrage in the country, where some 25,000 people have died and more than 80,000 have been injured.

More arrests are expected after the public prosecutor of Diyarbakır, one of the 10 provinces hit by the disaster, announced today that 29 arrest warrants had been issued, the official Anadolu news agency reported.

According to this source, one of those arrested is a businessman who built houses in Gaziantep and was arrested in Istanbul.

The prosecutor’s office launched several investigations in the affected provinces, such as Kahramanmaras, where the city of Pazardzhik was at the epicenter of the earthquake.

The Turkish Ministry of Justice has instructed 10 provincial prosecutors to set up “earthquake-related crime investigation departments.”

On Friday, police arrested a businessman from Hatay Province at Istanbul Airport, whose palatial residence had completely collapsed, overwhelming its occupants.

Source: AFP, APE-MPE.