Although more than a week has passed since the deadly earthquake that struck Turkey and SyriaRescue teams are holding out hope of finding new survivors. According to the latest figures, the death toll in this disaster, the worst in a century in the region, has reached about 40,000 so far. This outcome is still expected to rise.
This terrible earthquake was associated with the name of the city of Kahramanmaraş, which experts indicated was the epicenter of these violent earthquakes. It is an area that has remained unknown by the Arab and international public opinion in general, but its name has become widely circulated today through various media in the world with this earthquake.
Location of the fault zone?
Kahramanmaraş is located in a region of inactive faults or faults, according to the explanations of geophysicist and seismologist Atta Elias to France 24. “The locations of faults or faults in regions of the world are known and clear. However, the activity of each of them is not known to the same degree. There are areas where these faults are active and earthquakes are more frequent.”
As for the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, “it occurred on the eastern Anatolian rift, and it is one of the rifts that move slightly, at a distance of one centimeter per year. And earthquakes occur with major earthquakes with a frequency that extends for several centuries. Therefore, it is considered a type of slow rift.” This explains the difficulty in predicting the timing of the disaster.
This earthquake struck the Kahramanmaraş region with a depth of 10 km in the ground, which is a large extension, according to Atta, before it resulted in aftershocks, the largest of which was the second tremor that hit the region on the same day as the earthquake, which shook it very early on February 6.
Kahramanmaraş was the area most affected by the earthquake. The Turkish “Zaman” website, quoting the American New York Times, published pictures revealing the damage to the city, showing parts of it before and after the destruction.
“Large areas of it appeared, consisting of piles of stones, after the houses collapsed due to the force of the devastating earthquake,” the Turkish website writes. “According to the photos, the city center suffered the largest share of destruction, while its outskirts suffered less damage.”
The region in general throughout history has been the scene of many earthquakes. According to historical data, the city witnessed a major earthquake in 1114, in which tens of thousands of people were killed and the city was completely destroyed, and it collapsed again in 1308 due to a violent earthquake as well.
The demography and geography of the region
The city of Kahramanmaraş is the capital of the province of the same name, which has an area of 14,525 km². Its terrain is generally mountainous, and it is an extension of the Taurus Mountains in the southeast and the Rift Valley regions. The province also includes large plains. They are Sahl Jafer, Marash, Keksen, Ashai Goskun, Afshin, Albistan, Andran, Mizmeli, Narli, and Incli.
The population of Kahramanmaraş province, according to figures provided by a census dating back to 2009, is 1,037,491, of whom 605,531 live in urban areas and 431,960 in provinces and villages. That is, the proportion of residents in cities is 58%, and those who live in villages are 42%. The population of the city center is 384,953.
In addition to Kahramanmaraş, in which the largest number of residents live, they are also spread in cities that are the largest in the region in terms of the number of their residents, which are the cities of Al-Bustan, Afshin, Pazardik and Turkoglu. In total, the number of cities in Kahramanmaraş province is 10, the number of municipalities is 64, and the number of villages is 476.
District history
In 645 AD, control of the city was transferred from the Byzantines to the Muslims. After that, the Crusades attacked and occupied it, and it remained under the control of the Armenians. It formed part of the Armenian state in Cilicia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries before the Turks regained control of it.
After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Marash fell at the mercy of the French Mandate, which returned the Armenian refugees who fled after massacres targeted them to it, and wanted to separate Cilicia (including Marash) from Syria, and make it an Armenian state. However, in the 1920s, Kemal Ataturk seized Marash, Cilicia, and vast areas. The Armenian population of these areas migrated to Syria.
The Kahramanmaraş region contains many historical and archaeological sites, most notably: the Kahramanmaraş Museum, Karahuik, Yasa Tumulus (Taner Village), the topography of Kishnel Village, the ruins of Pazarcic (Toronglu Village), and the ruins of Ovaşklen Village.
In addition to the huge loss of life, historical buildings and monuments were also badly damaged. Today, building contractors are in the eye of the storm, where many of them have been arrested, and are facing charges of non-compliance with building standards set by the Turkish authorities after the 1999 earthquake that killed about 17,000 people.
Some believe that Turkey and northern Syria also need many years, or perhaps decades, to recover from the effects of the earthquake.
Boualem Ghobchi
