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DNA Special: Why Turkey sees catastrophic earthquakes and what causes them
Behind Turkey's catastrophic earthquakes is its special location. More than 2,300 people have died and thousands were injured in Monday's earthquake.
Updated : Feb 08, 2023, 03:50 PM IST | Edited by : Prashant Tamta
 "DNA Special: Why Turkey sees catastrophic earthquakes and what causes them")
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A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey and neighbouring Syria on Monday morning, killing more than 2,300 people and injuring thousands. Hours later two more earthquakes hit the country. The epicentre of the earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale was in Kahra-Man-Maras in Turkey's Gaziantep province. Rescue operation is still ongoing as hundreds of people are feared trapped in the debris.
The cities that have suffered the most destruction in Turkey include Ankara, Gaziantep, Kahra-Man-Maras, Diyarbakır, Malatya and Nurdagi. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has imposed an emergency, terming this devastation as the biggest catastrophe since 1939.
In 1939, an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude occurred in Turkey in which more than 33,000 people died. Earthquakes of high magnitudes also occurred in Turkey in 1999, 2011, January 2020, and October 2020. Now the question is why earthquakes ranging from 6 to 7.8 magnitude occur in Turkey. But before this, you have to understand why earthquakes happen.
There are seven tectonic plates inside our earth which keep on rotating continuously. The zone where these plates collide while moving is called a fault line. When plates collide, vibrations are produced, which are called earthquakes. The place where these plates collide is the epicentre of the earthquake.
The faster the plates collide, the greater the intensity of the earthquake. Sometimes the collision happens slowly, due to which tremors are felt after the earthquake, it is called aftershock.
As far as frequent earthquakes in Turkey are concerned, the reason behind that is its special location. Turkey falls in the middle of three big tectonic plates of our earth. The Eurasian Tectonic Plate lies in the northern region of Turkey, the African Tectonic Plate lies in the southwest region and the Arabian Tectonic Plate lies in the southeast.
According to experts, the Arabian Tectonic Plate is constantly colliding with the Eurasian Tectonic Plate in the Turkish region. For this reason, big earthquakes keep happening in the country.
READ | Turkey earthquake: What is a ‘strike-slip’ quake? Why was it so severe?
