On February 6, earthquakes killed tens of thousands across Turkey and Syria, and this DW documentary asks how much of the death toll was really unavoidable. Geologist Ziyadin Çakır of Istanbul's Technical University describes years of warnings about the fault line that officials met with hope rather than enforcement of earthquake-resistant construction codes. Rescue teams arrive too slowly in both countries, leaving survivors to dig through rubble themselves for days, while Syria's civil war closes most border crossings just when aid convoys need them open. Syria expert Carsten Wieland lays out the grim calculus facing aid groups forced to work through the Assad regime, which he says benefits from a disaster killing people it has bombed for years without the political cost of doing so directly. Political analyst Gönül Tol turns to Turkey's presidential election, due that spring, and the risk that Erdoğan uses the state of emergency to delay the vote. Interviews and on-the-ground footage build a case that this catastrophe was engineered as much by governments as by geology.