With every humanitarian catastrophe or major event that passes through people, fake news and conspiracy theories quickly spread, whose owners race to explain what is going on without relying on scientific evidence or even logical explanations.

Turkey was hit by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale at dawn on February 6, 2023, with its epicenter in the Pazardik region in the city of Kahramanmaraş, and a few hours later another earthquake of 7.6 degrees, centered in the Al-Bustan area of ​​the same province, killed more than 41,000 people. In Turkey and Syria so far, in addition to the injury of tens of thousands and the destruction of thousands of buildings.

Since the first minutes of the earthquake, many conspiracy theories have been spread on the Internet and social media platforms, and with the passage of time more such theories appear.

People's willingness to circulate and share news without scrutiny during crises and disasters contributes to the spread of false news and rumors on social media 6 times faster than true news, according to a study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018.

According to the European Observatory for Digital Media, most of the misleading or false publications on social media do not stand behind a specific party, because most of those who promote them only want to increase the number of views or followers, and in the following we monitor the most prominent of these theories:

American bomb theory

This theory was based on what it said were the movements of ships belonging to the US Command in Europe, to conduct joint military skirmishes in the Mediterranean with Cyprus and Greece days before the earthquake, in addition to the recommendation of some Western countries to their citizens in Turkey to take caution and close Western embassies in Ankara and consulates in Istanbul.

Believers in this theory say that the United States of America threw a small nuclear bomb into the sea off the Turkish coast or used one of its mysterious weapons that can cause artificial earthquakes, which are being manufactured in the "Harp" project, while others talked about weapons that launch high-intensity electromagnetic pulses.

What refutes this theory is that Turkey and Syria are located in a region of seismic activity that witnessed many strong earthquakes that were recorded in history books hundreds of years before the discovery of nuclear bombs.

Turkey is among the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. The Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority recorded about 33,000 earthquakes in 2020, including 322 earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 4 on the Richter scale, according to the Turkish newspaper "Daily Sabah". .

Another thing that refutes this theory is the repeated warnings of scientists years ago of severe earthquakes along the seismic rift called the "Southern Anatolian Fault". Among them is the professor specializing in seismology in Turkey, Naji Gurur.

Gurour said that the northern Anatolian rift has witnessed several earthquakes of moderate intensity in recent years, and a number of them were in the vicinity of Istanbul, which makes the possibility of a severe earthquake along this rift less.

As for the areas located on the outskirts of the southern Anatolian rift, they are highly vulnerable - according to Gurur - to devastating earthquakes "because of the accumulation of potential energy between the tectonic layers that meet at the seismic rift."

He pointed out that a group of researchers at Istanbul Technical University warned - in a recently published study - that the Malatya rift area branching from the main rift of southern Anatolia had not witnessed earthquakes of high intensity for about 1,500 years, which means that it is vulnerable to earthquakes of this kind.

Turkish dam theory

This theory is the most widespread in the aftermath of the earthquake and is promoted by pro-Syrian regime websites, accusing Turkey of causing the earthquake due to the expansion of building water dams.

The theory claims that Turkey's construction of hundreds of dams left behind giant water storage lakes that led to huge amounts of groundwater leaking into the ground, causing the earthquake.

The proponents of this theory cited the Turkish government's haste to empty the reservoirs of the dams located on the earthquake line, for fear of a catastrophic flood that would flood southern Turkey and extend to Syria and Iraq.

In response to this theory, Dr. Ahmed Al-Malabeh, a professor of geology and earthquake expert at the University of Jordan, said - in a post on Facebook - that such matters have nothing to do with the scientific reasons for the occurrence of earthquakes.

Al-Malaba said, "Earthquakes are natural phenomena and are explained geologically since the theory of continental shift that was developed in 1911," noting that "the earth's magnetosphere is not a circus to show off evil forces, and no one can explode tectonic plates and cause giant earthquakes."

He pointed out that huge dams with billions of cubic meters have a role in water leakage into underground reservoirs, thus increasing water reserves, and penetration between joints and faults in underground water reservoirs may cause a kind of movement and help to some extent in the occurrence of light earthquakes with a strength of up to 2 or 3 degrees. according to the Richter scale, but it is difficult to cause giant earthquakes.

Russian submarine theory

A new theory claims that a small nuclear bomb exploded inside a Russian submarine deep in the Mediterranean, causing the devastating earthquake.

However, this theory also does not depend on any evidence. Russia did not announce the explosion or sinking of any of its submarines in the Mediterranean Sea, nor did any other country monitor such an incident.

Nuclear explosion theory

The proponents of this theory believe that the earthquake occurred as a result of a faulty nuclear test within the Russian-Turkish nuclear project at the Turkish "Akuyu" nuclear power plant for the production of electric power.

It seems that the proponents of this theory did not notice that this nuclear plant - which is being built by the Russian "Ross Atom" company in Mersin, Turkey - is still under construction, and the Turkish authorities denied any nuclear explosion or radioactive leakage inside the station before or after the earthquake.