The 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit Türkiye on Monday is “one of the largest inland earthquakes” on the earth, an professional has mentioned.
“It was an unexpected big earthquake,” mentioned Professor Shinji Toda, underscoring the depth of the earthquakes that hit southern Türkiye a day earlier, ensuing within the demise of greater than 5,400 folks.
“It is one of the largest inland earthquakes in the world,” mentioned Toda, who’s a professor on the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Japan-based Tohoku University.
He informed the Japanese every day Asahi Shimbun that the earthquake “is thought to have been active over a wide area of about 150 km to 200 km west of the East Anatolian Fault Zone, which is known as an active fault.”
East Anatolian Fault Zone, mentioned the professor, is a strike-slip fault situated on the boundary between the Arabian Plate and the Anatolian Plate.
“In addition to the magnitude of the earthquake, the shallowness of the epicenter caused extensive damage,” the Japanese professor mentioned in an interview printed on Tuesday.
Toda mentioned the “amount of energy” launched by the earthquake that hit the southern elements of Türkiye on Monday “is more than ten times that of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake.”
The 7.3 magnitude Great Hanshin earthquake, or Kobe earthquake, occurred on Jan. 17, 1995 in Japan’s southern Hyogo province; whereas the Kumamoto earthquakes had been a collection of earthquakes, together with a magnitude 7.0 mainshock which struck April 16, 2016 beneath Kumamoto City of Kumamoto province in Japan’s Kyushu Region.
Türkiye has declared a three-month-long state of emergency in 10 provinces hit by earthquakes.
A 7.7 magnitude tremor early on Monday struck the Pazarcık district of Kahramanmaraş province – the epicenter of the quakes, then about 9 hours later, a 7.6 magnitude quake centered in Kahramanmaraş’s Elbistan district rocked the area, affecting a number of different provinces, together with Adana, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye and Şanlıurfa.
The earthquake was additionally felt in a number of international locations within the area, together with Syria and Lebanon.
“We are facing one of the biggest disasters not only in the history of the Turkish Republic, but also of our geography and the world,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan mentioned.
“Our biggest relief is that over 8,000 of our citizens have been rescued from the rubble so far,” Erdoğan mentioned.
Türkiye additionally issued a stage 4 alarm, which features a name for worldwide assist.
Earlier, Türkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) had mentioned the magnitude of the primary earthquake was 7.4 however later revised it to 7.7.
AFAD mentioned the quakes had been adopted by 243 aftershocks.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
