“Exploring the Causes of Devastation in Turkey and Syria Following a 7.8 Magnitude Earthquake”

A damaged vehicle is seen atop the rubble following an earthquake in Iskenderun, Turkey.

A damaged vehicle is seen atop the rubble following an earthquake in Iskenderun, Turkey.

A series of earthquakes have devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, killing more than 3,000 people and bringing down thousands of buildings.

The tremors, which were concentrated in Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, were felt as far away as Cairo in Egypt and Beirut in Lebanon.

They hit a region marred by more than a decade of civil war in Syria and the refugee crisis caused by the conflict on either side of the border.

What happened?

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday is likely to be one of the deadliest of this decade, seismologists said.

The epicenter was about 26 km east of the Turkish city of Nurdagi on the East Anatolian Fault. The quake radiated northeast, bringing devastation to central Turkey and Syria.

Eleven minutes after the first tremor, the region was hit by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. A 7.5 magnitude tremor came hours later, followed by another 6.0 magnitude spasm in the afternoon.

On average, there are fewer than 20 magnitude 7.0+ tremors each year, making Monday’s event severe.

why was it so bad

The intersection of three tectonic plates

The region is one of the most seismically active in the world, meaning it is prone to earthquakes.

Earthquakes occur when massive blocks of the Earth’s crust — or tectonic plates — suddenly move past one another.

The region of Turkey and Syria lies at the intersection of three of these plates: the Anatolian, Arabian and African plates.

The Arabian Plate is encroaching northward into Europe, causing the Anatolian Plate to be pushed westward at a rate of about 2 cm per year.

This stress, accumulated over decades, is now being released with fatal consequences.

A leaf slip error

The East Anatolian Fault is a strike fault. In these, solid slabs of rock press against each other across a vertical fault line, building up stress until you eventually slip in a horizontal motion, releasing a tremendous amount of stress that can trigger an earthquake.

California’s San Andreas Fault is perhaps the world’s most famous strike fault, and scientists warn a catastrophic tremor is long overdue.

“The shaking at the ground surface will have been stronger than a deeper earthquake of the same magnitude at the source,” David Rothery, a planetary geoscientist at the Open University, told Reuters.

Handout photo taken courtesy of the @mehmetyetim63 Twitter account of the collapsed building in Sanliurfa, Turkey.

Handout photo taken courtesy of the @mehmetyetim63 Twitter account of the collapsed building in Sanliurfa, Turkey.

The shallow tremors

The first eruption of the Turkish-Syrian earthquake occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 18 km (11 miles).

The second large quake, which followed nine hours later about 62 miles (100 km) northeast of the original tremor, occurred at a depth of only 6 miles (10 km).

Experts say the tremors at the surface will have been stronger than a deeper earthquake of the same magnitude at the source.

Quality of the buildings and location

There is also speculation about the types of buildings destroyed in the disaster, particularly in smaller towns and villages with less modern buildings.

Modern buildings that follow updated building codes have a good chance of surviving earthquakes. But older or cheaper buildings are more vulnerable, and buildings may already have been damaged in areas devastated by the civil war.

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