तुर्की में भूकंप आने का कारण ???

Turkey’s proneness to earthquakes

It  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, according to the British Archaeological Survey.  

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, one of the best-understood fault systems in the world, 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. 

Almost 18,000 people died and more than 45,000 were injured. In 2011 again, more than 500 people died when a 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook the eastern city of Van. 

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.  

What makes this one catastrophic in particular? 

Between 2013 and2022 there were 30,673 reported earthquakes across the world. Only two of them reached the same magnitude as of Monday’s quake.

“It’s a very large fault zone, but this is a larger earthquake than they’ve experienced any time in recent memory,” Karl Lang, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech University’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, told CNN, referring to Monday’s earthquake.  

Monday’s tremors are believed to be the strongest since the December of 1939, when a magnitude-8.0 earthquake struck near the eastern city of Erzincan. The quake killed more than 20,000 people and damaged almost 1,16,720 buildings.  

Between 1939 and 1999, Turkey has witnessed five major earthquakes. In August 1999, the Izmit Earthquake struck the Antolian fault system, registering a magnitude of 7.4, and shook some of the most densely-populated urban areas for almost a minute. 17,000 people died, 1,20,000 houses crumbled down due to poor construction, and 2,50,000 were rendered homeless. Three months later, a 7.2 earthquake again on the NAF lead to more than 845 deaths in the province of Duzce and surrounding areas. 

Since 1900, more than 90,000 people have lost their lives in as many as 76 earthquakes. About half of these were lives lost to earthquakes in 1939 and 1999. Monetarily, Turkey has directly lost more than $25 billion in the last century.  

In 2021, in a “catastrophic projection”, an expert panel warned that 2,00,000 buildings in Istanbul stand at risk to medium- or high-level damage, jeopardizing the lives of three million residents in the city. An investigation into the 1999 earthquake that killed thousands found buildings did not meet design requirements and were not earthquake resistant, as is required by the regulations. They also used poor construction material and were shoddily constructed, experts noted. Multiple studies, including one from 2020, have reiterated the caution, averring that multiple districts are vulnerable to earthquakes of more than 7.4 magnitudes. It’s not a question of “if” but “when”, experts opine. 

The situation is direr in Syria, according to reports, where quake-related destruction has taken hold of both government- and opposition-occupied regions – both facing debilitating winter storms that make it difficult for water, healthcare, food, and other humanitarian resources to reach these areas. The Syrian Civil Defence, which operates in the opposition-held portions, has declared a state of emergency, appealing to “the international community to support the rescue of civilians in Syria