Why makes Turkey a hotbed of seismic activity?
Turkey is frequently shaken by earthquakes. In 2020 itself, it recorded almost 33,000 earthquakes in the region, according to Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD). Out of these, 332 earthquakes were of magnitudes 4.0 and higher.
Turkey’s proneness to earthquakes comes from its tectonic location. The Earth’s outermost layer comprises of some 15 major slabs, called tectonic plates. The boundaries between these plates are a system of faults – fractures between two blocks of rocks. Any sudden movement along these faults can cause earthquakes,
according to the British Archaeological Survey.
Turkey is located on the
Anatolian tectonic plate, which is wedged between the Eurasian and African plates. On the north side, the minor Arabian plate further restricts movement. One fault line — the North Anatolian fault (NAF) line, the meeting point of the Eurasian and Anatolian tectonic plates — is known to be “particularly devastating”. The NAF, one of the
best-understood fault systems in the world, stretches from the south of Istanbul to northeastern Turkey, and has caused catastrophic earthquakes in the past. In 1999 itself it caused two earthquakes — of 7.4 and 7.0 magnitude each — in Gölcük and Düzce provinces. Almost 18,000 people died and more than 45,000 were injured. In 2011 again, more than 500 people died when a 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook the eastern city of Van.
Then there is the East Anatolian fault line, the tectonic boundary between the Anatolian Plate and the northward-moving Arabian Plate. It runs 650 kilometers from eastern Turkey and into the Mediterranean. In addition to this, the Aegean Sea Plate, located in the
eastern Mediterranean Sea under southern
Greece and western Turkey, is also a source of seismic activity in the region.
According to one
estimate, almost 95% of the country’s land mass is prone to earthquakes, while about a third of the country is at high risk, including the areas around the major cities of Istanbul and Izmir and the region of East Anatolia.
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