A sociological evaluation on the adequacy of response to earthquake in the scope of disaster management: The case of Malatya province

Natural disasters have been occurring since the beginning of the world. All societies have been exposed to various natural disasters to date. Since natural disasters that affect entire societies have social consequences and appear as a social problem, they become the subject of research in sociology. As a type of natural disaster, earthquake deeply affects all institutions in the society and completely changes the ordinary lives of people living in the society. For this reason, earthquakes have become the subject of disaster sociology within the scope of natural disasters. The destructive dimension of earthquakes has brought them to the agenda with their evaluation in terms of disaster management. It is very important to investigate the earthquake response capacity for Türkiye today. Türkiye has experienced and continues to experience many devastating earthquakes from past to present. Within the framework of our disaster management system, which was shaped after the Marmara earthquake in 1999, which was seen as a milestone in disaster management, the deficiencies in the response to the earthquake should be taken into account and they should be improved and studies should be carried out in this direction. In the city of Malatya, which is one of the 11 cities affected by the earthquake centered in Kahramanmaraş on February 6, 2023, the extent of damage and losses caused by the earthquake is quite large. It is among the top 4 provinces most affected by the earthquake. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the problems experienced during the earthquake response phase within the scope of disaster management in Malatya province. This research, shaped within the framework of disaster management and disaster sociology, aims to make a scientific contribution to the relevant literature. There are some studies conducted in this field. However, no study has been found that includes the population of Malatya province and also deals with the success and failure of disaster management from a sociological perspective. Therefore, in this study, it is about Turkey's earthquake response adequacy within the scope of disaster management; Meeting basic needs, use of social media in earthquake response, deficiencies in disaster management, problems experienced in search and rescue and debris removal efforts during the earthquake response process were examined.