Turkish authorities today promised a thorough investigation into all those believed to be responsible for the collapse of buildings in Monday’s devastating earthquake, and have already ordered the arrest of 113 people.

Deputy Prime Minister Fuat Oktay said 131 suspects have been identified so far as being responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of homes demolished by the quake in 10 affected provinces.

“Detention warrants have been issued against 113 people,” Oktay told reporters at a briefing at the Disaster Management Center in Ankara.

“We will pursue this carefully until the necessary legal process is completed, especially for buildings that have been severely damaged and buildings that have resulted in death and injury,” he said.

The Ministry of Justice has set up earthquake-related crime investigation units in the earthquake-hit provinces to investigate the deaths and injuries, he said.

Environment Minister Murat Kurum said 24,921 buildings in the region collapsed or were severely damaged by the earthquake, based on inspections of more than 170,000 buildings.

The prosecutor’s office in Adana ordered the arrest of 62 people as part of an investigation into the collapsed buildings, while the prosecutor’s office requested the arrest of 33 people in Diyarbakir for the same reason, the official Turkish news agency Anadolu reported.

The agency said eight people were arrested in Sanlıurfa and four in Osmaniye in connection with damaged buildings believed to have had problems, such as the removal of columns.

The police arrested at the Istanbul airport a developer of a residential complex that collapsed in Antioch as he was preparing to board a flight bound for Montenegro. The arrest was made on Friday afternoon, and yesterday he was officially taken into custody, the agency said.

The luxurious 12-storey residential complex was built ten years ago and consisted of 249 apartments. There is no information about the victims in this building. The detainee told prosecutors that he did not know that the building had collapsed and that his trip to Montenegro was made for other reasons, Anadolu reports.

“We have completed all the procedures required by law. We have issued all the necessary permits,” the Turkish news agency quoted him as saying.

Source: Reuters, APE-MPE.