China News Service, February 6th (Reporter Kan Feng) According to the official measurement of the China Earthquake Network, at 9:17 and 18:24 on February 6th, Beijing time, two earthquakes with a focal depth of 20 kilometers and a magnitude of 7.8 occurred in Turkey. The earthquake has so far killed at least 1,500 people in Turkey and Syria and injured thousands more.
Regarding the two consecutive strong earthquakes, Sun Shihong, a researcher at the China Earthquake Network Center, told a reporter from Chinanews.com that from the perspective of the cause of the earthquake, Turkey has a special geographical location and is also a country with many earthquakes. Its south is the Arabian plate, and its north is Eurasia. The plate, located at the intersection of the two major plates, is the source of power for frequent earthquakes in Turkey.
Specifically, there are two major earthquake fault zones in Turkey. From previous observations, the North Anatolia fault zone in northern Turkey has more frequent seismic activity. However, the two earthquakes in Turkey this time occurred in the southeastern part of the country. The East Anatolia fault zone, which is northeast-trending, is also in line with the location relationship of the two 7.8-magnitude earthquakes.
Sun Shihong said that the Turkish earthquake should be a swarm-type earthquake, that is, a group of earthquakes, rather than an isolated or main aftershock type. In addition, this earthquake has two mainshocks with the same magnitude, which belongs to the earthquake swarm-type earthquake. "Twin Shock Earthquake".
According to Sun Shihong, from previous observations, strong earthquakes in Turkey are often more disastrous.
In the past 100 years, there have been 10 earthquakes in Turkey that killed more than 3,000 people. The magnitude of the earthquake was between 7.0 and 7.9. The disasters caused by earthquakes above 7.0 in the country are often more serious.
In this Turkish earthquake, the first 7.8-magnitude earthquake occurred at 4:00 a.m. local time, which may cause relatively large casualties. In addition, the earthquake resistance of the houses in this area is poor, and two strong earthquakes occurred one after another, causing damage to the buildings will be more serious.