Türkiye vowed on Sunday to investigate if anyone was responsible for the collapse of buildings in the country's devastating earthquakes nearly a week ago and has already ordered the detention of 134 suspects.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Sunday that 131 people were being investigated for their alleged responsibility for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened in the 10 provinces affected by the tremors early last Monday.

He said that three had been arrested pending trial. 

The justice ministry also established earthquake crimes investigation bureaus in the quake zone provinces to investigate deaths and injuries.

Environment Minister Murat Kurum said that 24,921 buildings across the region had collapsed or were heavily damaged in the quake, based on assessments of more than 170,000 buildings.

Opposition parties have accused President Tayyip Erdogan's government of not enforcing building regulations, and of mis-spending special taxes levied after the last major earthquake in 1999 in order to make buildings more resistant to quakes.

Erdogan has said the opposition just tells lies and spreads slander to besmirch the government, obstructing investment instead of facing up to the corruption in the opposition-run municipalities.

In the 10 years to 2022, Türkiye slipped 47 places in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index to 101, having been as high as 54 out of 174 countries in 2012.

Looters and crimes

Meanwhile, the security in Türkiye's quake zone has come into focus after two German aid organizations suspended rescue operations there on Saturday, citing security problems and reports of clashes between groups of people and gunfire.

The German International Search and Rescue and Germany's Federal Agency for Technical Relief said they would resume their work as soon as Turkish civil protection agency AFAD classifies the situation as safe.

Business owners in the central district of southern Türkiye's Antakya, one of the worst-hit cities, emptied their shops on Sunday to prevent merchandise from being stolen by looters.

Residents and aid workers from other cities also cited worsening security conditions, with widespread accounts of businesses and collapsed homes being robbed.

Erdogan announced on Saturday the government would take action against those involved in looting and other crimes in the region hit by the earthquakes.

Syria aid complicated by civil strife

In Syria, the rebel-held northwest has received little aid compared to government-held areas as front lines with the government are sealed off and only a single border crossing links it to Turkey to the north. 

"We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria," United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths tweeted from the Türkiye-Syria border, where only a single crossing is open for UN aid supplies.

According to a spokesperson for the UN's humanitarian aid office, the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that holds the largest part of the region has used "issues with approval" to restrict earthquake aid from government-held parts of Syria into the territory.

An aid convoy from Syria's Kurdish-led northeastern region carrying fuel and other aid was also turned back on Thursday from the northwest, where Türkiye-backed rebels are in control.

The U.S. government on Sunday called on Syria and all parties to immediately grant humanitarian access to all those in need across the country.

Last week, Türkiye also said it may be willing to open a direct border crossing with government-held zones in Syria, as ties begin to thaw more than a decade after Ankara cut off diplomatic ties with Damascus over the conflict.

The quakes that hit Türkiye and Syria rank as the world's sixth deadliest natural disaster this century, with the death toll exceeding the 31,000 from a quake in neighboring Iran in 2003.

It has killed 29,605 people in Türkiye and more than 3,500 in Syria, where tolls have not been updated for two days.

(With input from Reuters)

(Cover: Search and rescue crews work to dig out earthquake survivors in Antakya, Hatay, Türkiye, February 11, 2023. /CFP)