Turkish authorities ignored quake warnings from Japanese experts, who had learned the lessons of the 1995 Kobe disaster that left 6,430 dead, officials said yesterday.
Experts said warnings were made to Turkey by Japanese seismologists who had visited the country, which was struck by a major quake early on Tuesday that has left more than 4,000 dead.
"We cannot predict earthquakes exactly," conceded Dr Tsuneji Rikitake, director-general of Japan's earthquake prediction study institute.
"But a lot of seismologists have warned the region is one of the most dangerous areas in the world. But the [Turkish] government ignored our warnings," he added.
"This wasn't a natural disaster, it was a human disaster."
For example, in the January 1995 quake that ripped through Kobe, a critical weakness was the poor construction of timber-frame buildings which fuelled fatal fires.
Japan improved building standards after the Kobe quake, the expert said, but Turkey is already blaming shoddy construction work for many of the toppled apartment blocks, homes and offices.
"Turkey should have learned the lesson from Kobe," said Dr Rikitake. "But we know their major problem is money. Poor countries cannot afford such costly improvements."
Most of Kobe's victims were crushed in collapsed buildings or killed by fires. Some 44,000 people were injured, 8,800 seriously. The cost of reconstruction was then estimated at $77 billion.
"We sent a lot of seismologists to Turkey and told them to be aware of the danger but they ignored us," said Dr Ryohei Morimoto, honorary professor of seismology at Tokyo University.
"Once people in Turkey lose their house due to an earthquake, most people just move to another place and build a similar vulnerable house, and the same calamity repeats," he added. "Nothing changes."
Japan lives in perpetual expectation of the next "big one" to rival the "Great Kanto" earthquake of 1923 which killed 140,000 people in the Tokyo area - where three major plates meet.
In the Kobe quake, critics said hundreds of lives were lost by bureaucratic squabbling which delayed aid. Since then, a crisis management centre has been set up in the prime minister's office.
And on September 1st each year, millions of people take part in earthquake drills.
In and around Tokyo this year, some 500 ground, sea and air force troops will reportedly take part.
A destroyer will conduct a naval transport drill, reports said, on the assumption that public transport has been crippled.
Although some Japanese seismologists say they can spot a 69-year cycle in major earthquakes striking the Tokyo region, most overseas experts say such forecasts are close to useless. "It is still impossible for scientists to predict earthquakes," said Dr Denis Legrand, a French seismologist based in Tokyo. "We are increasingly discovering that no two earthquakes are identical."