Turkey Earthquake:
On February 6, 2023, an earthquake in Turkey struck southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria. It occurred 34 km (21 mi) west of Gaziantep at 04:17 TRT (01:17 UTC), with a magnitude of at least Mw 7.8 and a maximum of Mercalli XI (Extreme). An unusual Mw 7.7 aftershock occurred nine hours after the main earthquake, centered 95 km (59 mi) northeast of Kahramanmaraş Province.
The earthquake was followed by more than 2,100 aftershocks. The quake was caused by a shallow area. More than 36,900 deaths have been reported by February 13, 2023; More than 31,600 in Turkey and 5,300 in Syria.
What makes these stronger quakes so rare?
In the different math of earthquakes, you get one-tenth of the result every time you jump up a large room. So when you get bigger and bigger, they become rare. There is controversy about this. Some argue that it is possible to determine the earthquake's magnitude that caused the fault. THEAZNEWS But I don't think the data shows that. In 100 years, if we have 20 magnitude 7s, they will have two magnitude 8s. That's pretty much what we see.
And can they get bigger? No one knows. The hubris of the seismic community is that we can estimate the magnitude of the earthquake. On the East Anatolian fault, many scientists put the maximum in the region of 7.4. World News
The number of victims of the earthquake exceeded 24 thousand
The number of victims of the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria rose to more than 33 thousand on Sunday, according to the UN warning, and the last number could double.
According to government and health officials, 29,605 people have died in Turkey and 3,574 in Syria, bringing the death toll to 33,179, Agence France-Presse
reported.
Why is Turkey such a seismically active area?
Turkey is squeezed by a huge tectonic vise. The Arabian subcontinent is shifting northward, pushing Turkey north against the critical border of northern Europe. And so it happens that Turkey is pushed out to the west, where it flows into the Mediterranean, and eventually ends up in Crete in a subduction zone like what we see in Japan.
