A housing complex built by Turkish contractor Summa, a company honored at an overseas contracting awards ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier this year, was among the public housing developments that collapsed or became uninhabitable in Venezuela’s June 24 twin earthquakes.
The complex, built under Venezuela’s flagship public housing program, had been the subject of structural complaints for years, according to Venezuelan media reports.
The magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, west of Caracas, on June 24, causing widespread destruction, particularly in La Guaira state. Venezuela’s information ministry said on Sunday that the death toll had risen to 3,342, with 16,470 people injured and 17,345 left homeless.
The Ciudad Hugo Chávez Frías complex was built as part of Venezuela’s Gran Misión Vivienda public housing program. Venezuelan outlets El Estímulo and Correo del Caroni reported that the development was left largely uninhabitable after the earthquake.
Summa’s archived project records identify the development as the first phase of its Vargas Social Housing project, built under a turnkey contract for Venezuela’s Ministry of Housing and Habitat. The company says it completed 1,488 apartments after Hugo Chávez, the president at the time, invited the Turkish contractor to participate in the program.
Journalist Mustafa Özdemir reported from Venezuela that 160 of the complex’s 192 residential blocks had collapsed or become uninhabitable. He reported about 800 deaths and 600 people missing in the development.
The disaster has attracted attention in Turkey because Summa is one of the country’s largest international construction companies, with projects including airports, stadiums, convention centers and government buildings across Africa, Central Asia and Latin America.
Summa was among the companies honored at an overseas contracting awards ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in January. Summa Chairman Selim Bora serves as head of the Turkey-Venezuela Business Council.
Residents had reported cracks, water leaks and other structural problems at the complex for years before the earthquake, according to the Climax investigative outlet. Venezuelan media also reported that inspections in 2014 identified ground movement beneath parts of the development and that residents said subsequent repairs did not resolve the problems.
The Gran Mision Vivienda program has also faced longstanding allegations of inflated costs, weak oversight and poor construction quality, according to Venezuelan media and anti-corruption watchdog Transparencia Venezuela.
Summa has not publicly commented on the collapse. According to Özdemir, the company was asked whether it had carried out the project’s geotechnical studies and whether it had assessed the cause of the structural failures but had not responded by the time of publication.
The housing complex was built between 2012 and 2014 under an economic cooperation initiative between Turkey and Venezuela often described as an “oil-for-housing” arrangement. At the time, Bora said Summa completed the project ahead of schedule using mostly Turkish construction materials.
The collapse of new apartment buildings has revived debate over construction standards and oversight. Similar questions emerged in Turkey after earthquakes in February 2023, when investigators concluded that poor construction practices, weak enforcement of building regulations and unauthorized building modifications contributed to thousands of building collapses, leading to criminal investigations into hundreds of contractors, engineers and public officials.