Three earthquake measuring — 7.8, 7.6, and 6.0 — magnitude on the Richter scale has devastated Turkey and Syria.
- The tremors of the first quake were felt on February 6 around 4 a.m., with the epicentre located near the city of Gaziantep in south-central Turkey.
- Turkey is frequently shaken by earthquakes. In 2020 itself, it recorded almost 33,000 earthquakes in the region, according to Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).
- Turkey’s proneness to earthquakes comes from its tectonic location. The Earth’s outermost layer comprises of some 15 major slabs, called tectonic plates. The boundaries between these plates are a system of faults – fractures between two blocks of rocks. Any sudden movement along these faults can cause earthquakes.
Anatolian tectonic plate
- Turkey is located on the Anatolian tectonic plate, which is wedged between the Eurasian and African plates.
- On the north side, the minor Arabian plate further restricts movement.
- One fault line — the North Anatolian fault (NAF) line, the meeting point of the Eurasian and Anatolian tectonic plates — is known to be particularly devastating.
- The NAF stretches from the south of Istanbul to northeastern Turkey, and has caused catastrophic earthquakes in the past.
- In 1999 itself it caused two earthquakes — of 7.4 and 7.0 magnitude each — in Gölcük and Düzce provinces.
- Then there is the East Anatolian fault line, the tectonic boundary between the Anatolian Plate and the northward-moving Arabian Plate. It runs 650 kilometers from eastern Turkey and into the Mediterranean.
- In addition to this, the Aegean Sea Plate, located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea under southern Greece and western Turkey, is also a source of seismic activity in the region.
- According to one estimate, almost 95% of the country’s land mass is prone to earthquakes, while about a third of the country is at high risk, including the areas around the major cities of Istanbul and Izmir and the region of East Anatolia.
