Last week’s twin earthquakes in Türkiye are corresponding to the world’s largest nuclear take a look at, Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, a professor of geology at Western Washington University, informed Anadolu on Tuesday.
In an analysis of the magnitude and traits of the quakes, whose epicenters had been southern Kahramanmaraş province’s Pazarcık and Elbistan districts, Caplan-Auerbach stated the earthquakes had been “a truly tragic event.”
“It’s a somewhat unusual event in that this portion of southern Türkiye, although it does get earthquakes, has not seen an earthquake of this size in quite some time. That said, it’s a very seismically active area. It’s just that the timescales over which the Earth generates earthquakes and the timescales where we experienced them are somewhat different,” she added.
Emphasizing that the area is seismically energetic and there have been main earthquakes over time, Caplan-Auerbach stated the expansion of the inhabitants over time led to extra casualties after such quakes.
She additionally underlined that the quakes occurred at a depth that could be very near the floor, making the tragedy even worse.
“And that enhances the ground shaking, causing it to be a more violent experience,” she added.
– ‘Uncommon however not exceptional’
Regarding the 2 devastating earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş, Caplan-Auerbach underlined that the quakes had been “certainly uncommon, but not unheard of.”
“Sometimes motion on one fault will increase the stress on another and push it into failure. Whether that’s what happened here, whether this is a traditional aftershock is harder to evaluate at this early stage,” she added.
Caplan-Auerbach additional acknowledged that in accordance with the present assessments, an earthquake on one fault line triggered one other fault line.
“This is a huge aftershock. But again, this is not unheard of,” she stated, referring to the magnitude 7.6 earthquake that befell later.
Reminding that one other magnitude 7 earthquake struck a couple of days after a 6.5 magnitude quake in California a couple of years in the past, Caplan-Auerbach stated: “And then several days later, it had another one that was a little larger. That was a seven and change. So we do see them, but as you’ve said, they’re less common,” she stated.
– ‘We can not say precisely what’s going to occur sooner or later’
Pointing out that the earthquake was very near the floor and in a large space, Caplan-Auerbach stated “it is very difficult to predict what will happen next in earthquakes.”
“They are very random events. They occur without warning. So our hope is that this area has released some of the stress, but it may have added stress to other portions, so we really cannot say what the future will hold.”
With regards to the magnitude, she stated “this earthquake was a very, very big earthquake.”
“This was a very large earthquake. This was a magnitude 7.8. It’s probably comparable with the largest nuclear test ever run — not a bomb that hit anybody, but the largest bombs that we have tested. Obviously, a very different event in that it stretches across a very long area. The larger the earthquake, (and) typically, the larger the fault, the larger the area that moves,” she stated.
“This fault line spans an area of more than 300 kilometers (186 miles). That’s why it affected so many people,” she stated.
In this case, that basically meant it stretched throughout 300 kilometers or extra, which is why it impacted so many communities. Earthquakes come and go, after all, a variety of sizes, and the dimensions is big. It’s a logarithmic scale, which suggests the 7.8 was in all probability twice as massive as this, because the 7.5,” she added.
“We do see large earthquakes in the world…(But a) shallow (one) beneath the continent is somewhat unusual. It’s sort of one of the largest ones that we have seen.”
– ‘Need to enhance our constructing codes’
Caplan-Auerbach stated that main earthquakes normally happen on ocean coasts the place tectonic plates go beneath one other plate.
“So for example, the 2011 Japan earthquake in Tohoku and the earthquake that hit Sumatra in 2004 were considerably larger but a little more distant from the communities they impacted.”
“I think maybe the thing we see most clearly is the need to always improve our building codes, because the great tragedy has been the collapse of buildings. Older buildings are often not constructed to the levels that we know now,” she stated.
“We always hope that we will all learn, but really the only other thing I will add is my deepest sympathies to the people of Türkiye and the people of Syria who are impacted by this. Please know that the whole world is standing with you and experiencing your grief with you,” she added.
On Feb. 6, two huge earthquakes struck southern Türkiye.
The magnitude 7.7 and seven.6 tremors had been centered in Kahramanmaraş and hit 9 different provinces-Hatay, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakir, Kilis, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa.
They additionally affected a number of different nations and precipitated widespread destruction in northern Syria.
At least 35,418 folks had been killed in Türkiye, in accordance with the most recent official figures, whereas the demise toll topped 3,600 in Syria.
Kaynak: AA_ING
Source: www.anews.com.tr
