Because of its geological location, Turkey is repeatedly affected by strong earthquakes. In fact, most of the population lives in constant danger of earthquakes.
Many people in several Turkish cities left their homes in the early morning for fear of further, stronger earthquakes.
kca./(dpa)
A 5.9 magnitude earthquake shook northwestern Turkey on Wednesday night. The number of injured rose to at least 50, as announced by Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu. One person was seriously injured, the broadcaster CNN Türk reported. She is said to have jumped out of the window out of panic and injured herself.
The epicenter of the quake was in the Black Sea province of Düzce, according to the Turkish civil protection authority Afad. Even in the 16 million metropolis of Istanbul, about 200 kilometers away, and the Turkish capital Ankara, the tremors were felt around 4 a.m. local time. More than 100 aftershocks have been recorded in Turkey so far. People slept wrapped in blankets in public places, as seen on TV footage. Some showed damage.
The mayor of the provincial capital of the same name, Düzce, Faruk Özlü, reported on the CNN Türk broadcaster that residents were panicking. The civil protection announced that the power supply in the region had been interrupted for control purposes. The authority called on everyone to remain calm.
Strong earthquakes again and again
Few countries are hit by major earthquakes more often than Turkey. This is mainly due to the North Anatolian Fault, which stretches from the north-east of Turkey across the country to the Aegean Sea and is divided into several sub-faults south of Istanbul. There the Anatolian Plate in the south and the Eurasian Plate in the north scrape each other.
Istanbul in the tension of the tectonic plates
A NZZ infographic from 2010 shows the location of the fault.
Like a jammed sliding door, the Anatolian plate keeps getting stuck on the Eurasian plate, which discharges at irregular intervals and causes earthquakes. As a result, the majority of the Turkish population lives in constant danger of earthquakes.
More than 100 people died in Izmir in October 2020 in one of the most serious earthquakes in recent years. In November 1999, around 900 people died in a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in the Düzce region.
In September of the same year, Turkey was hit by one of the worst natural disasters in its history: a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in the region around the north-western industrial city of Izmit claimed the lives of more than 17,000 people. Experts are also expecting a strong earthquake in Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, in the near future, but it is not possible to make a concrete prediction.