Monday’s strong earthquake in southern Turkey and neighboring Syria was devastating due to several factors: the time of production, its location, the relatively quiet fault for two centuries and poorly constructed buildings, Agerpres reported.

At least 3,800 people were killed in a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria overnight at 04:17 local time, according to the latest figures, followed by another strong 7.5-magnitude earthquake in the same area around 1:25 p.m.

The balance caused mainly by the force of the earthquake, unprecedented in Turkey since the earthquake produced in 1939, and which occurred in a very densely populated region.

The ground shook at 04:17 and all those who were sleeping “were trapped under the debris as their houses collapsed”, said Roger Masson, a researcher with the British Geological Survey.

In addition, the construction of the houses “was not really in line with the risk zone of strong earthquakes,” explained Musson, author of a book on earthquakes. This can be explained by the fact that the seismic fault where these houses were located was relatively calm in the past.

“Almost a repeat” of an earthquake made two centuries ago

Turkey is located in one of the main seismic zones of the globe. In 1999, an earthquake struck along the North Anatolian Fault in the north of the Düzce region, killing more than 17,000 people.

On Monday, the ground shook at the other end of the country, near the border with Syria, along the Eastern Anatolia Fault.

The fault hasn’t had a magnitude 7 earthquake for more than two centuries, which may have caused the population to “overlook the importance of its danger,” Masson said. A duration that also means “a large amount of energy could have accumulated” along the fault. The assumption is confirmed, according to the researcher, by the appearance of a strong aftershock after the main earthquake.

Monday’s earthquake is a “near repeat” of an earthquake that hit the area on August 13, 1822, which seismologists estimated at 7.4. The then earthquake caused “enormous destruction, destroyed entire cities and the loss of tens of thousands of human lives,” recalled Roger Masson.

The earthquake occurred at a shallow depth – about 17.9 kilometers – near the city of Gaziantep with a population of two million. It was caused by the northward movement of the Arabian tectonic plate, which is “advancing towards Turkey,” the seismologist explained.

When the stress becomes too great, the plate suddenly moves forward, and “the release of that movement causes a strong earthquake like what’s happening today,” he added.

The degree of destruction also depends on the length of the soil rupture along the fault line (100 kilometers in the case of Monday’s earthquake), the scientist claims. “This means that any point within that 100 km has actually reached the epicenter.”

Many buildings “collapsed like pancakes”

Building construction is a major factor when an earthquake occurs, said Carmen Solana, a volcanologist at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom.

“Unfortunately, infrastructure resistance is uneven in the south of Turkey and, especially, in Syria. Therefore, saving lives now depends on the speed of rescue teams,” she told AFP.

The 1999 earthquake in Turkey led to legislation in 2004 requiring all new buildings to meet earthquake-resistant criteria.

The scale of the devastation on Monday should prompt Turkish authorities to check whether they followed the law, said Joanna Faure Walker of UCL’s Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Management.

Many buildings “collapsed like pancakes”, said UCL volcanologist Bill McGuire. “This happens when the walls and floors are not strong enough, each floor collapses vertically on the one below,” leaving residents with little chance of survival, he added.

“It’s unusual to see one building standing without significant damage and the next one completely leveled because of questionable construction or substandard materials,” he said.

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