NOS News••Amended
Turkey was rocked last night by one of the strongest earthquakes in the country’s recent history. The magnitude 7.8 quake occurred in the south and caused a lot of damage, including in neighboring Syria. At the end of the morning a second quake with a magnitude of 7.5 followed, there were also many aftershocks. Thousands of people have lost their lives.
Turkey is one of the regions with the most earthquakes in the world. Last year, more than 22,000 were measured, most of them small. “At magnitudes like this you are shocked, because that means many victims in such a place,” says seismologist Läslo Evers of the KNMI. “Such a strong quake has never occurred in this specific region.”
Turkey is located on the Anatolian Plate, between three larger tectonic plates, which are always moving. From the south, the Arabian and African plates push against it, pushing it against the Eurasian plate. The pressure shifts the Anatolian plate, causing an earthquake once in a while.
Turkey knows that it has to take earthquakes into account, but the time and place cannot be predicted. “You do know what the effects of these kinds of heavy earthquakes are, and that enables you to prepare,” says Evers. This time the quake was close to major cities and the intensity was great. “That leads to large-scale destruction of homes and infrastructure.”
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The tectonic plates on which Turkey and surrounding countries lie -
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Massive earthquake with magnitude of 7.8 -
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Massive earthquake with magnitude of 7.5
As with previous quakes, the material damage, and with it the number of victims, is large. Images show that housing complexes have been razed to the ground in cities such as Diyarbakir and Gaziantep. Thousands of buildings in ten major cities have collapsed. In Turkey alone, the death toll stood at 1700 tonight. For years, there has been a lot of criticism in the country about the poor safety of houses and infrastructure. Large parts of cities are not earthquake resistant.
This is due to inconsistent government policy, says Ihsan Engin Bal, engineer and lecturer at Hanze University Groningen. “At least half of the buildings you see now in major Turkish cities are not earthquake-resistant.” It is mainly apartment complexes of about six or seven floors that collapse in the event of a major earthquake.
Those cheaper flats were built in the 1990s, when many Turks moved from the countryside to the city. “At that time, a lot of illegal construction was done and there was no strict control by the government. It takes a lot of time, money and resources to improve or rebuild those flats,” says Engin Bal. He specializes in earthquake-resistant construction and advised on major construction projects in Turkey.
Stricter inspections
After the severe earthquake in 1999 in Izmit, in the densely populated western part of the country, the legislation was tightened. At least 17,000 people were killed in that quake, according to official figures. “Since then, the government has been monitoring more strictly. The high skyscrapers in particular are built extra solidly. The buildings built after 2018 are the most reliable, when even stricter legislation was introduced.”
Despite stricter legislation, there is still a chance that building permits will be tampered with. The construction industry is a driving force behind the Turkish economy and is strongly linked to politics. Many major construction projects have been launched in recent years under President Erdogan.
Many victims could have been prevented with consistent policy, but Turks never have guarantees of safety, says the engineer. “Everyone in Turkey knows that he will experience an earthquake in his life. In recent years there have also been earthquakes that have killed people. You know it will come one day.”
