The earthquake survivors are now refugees and need to think about relocating.

20 February 2023

Aftershocks centred in Turkey’s Hatay province were shallow meaning they pose serious danger to those in the quake zone.

10 Kilometers deep (click here)

A shallow magnitude 6.4 earthquake (click here) has struck the Turkey-Syria border region, killing at least three people, two weeks after the area was devastated by quakes that killed tens of thousands of people.

Monday’s aftershock was centred in Turkey’s southernmost province of Hatay at a depth of 2km (1.2 miles), the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre said.

Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said three people were killed and more than 200 others injured.

The quake hit the city of Defne at 8:04pm (17:04 GMT) and was strongly felt in Hatay’s nearby capital of Antakya and in Adana, 200km (300 miles) to the north.

A second quake of magnitude 5.8 shook the region several minutes later, Turkey’s disaster management agency said. It was centred in Hatay’s Samandag district.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said the tremors were felt in Syria, Jordan, Israel and Egypt....

The area where these earthquakes are occurring is unstable. There should be evacuation of the area if at all possible. The rescue crews are still finding people from the previous quakes. Hard to fathom considering these buildings pancaked in a matter of seconds and without any real warning.

Shallow earthquakes have less distance to travel to the surface. They maintain their energy level and cause a lot of surface movement.

The reason it was felt all the way to Jordan is because they life along the same fault line. Shallow quakes with all their energy at the surface aren't necessarily felt at greater distances, but, this makes sense that it did. Arabian Plate and Anatolian Plate are moving.

Physiography of the Anatolian Plateau and the surrounding region. NAF: North Anatolian fault, EAF: East Anatolian Fault. 

DSF, Dead Sea Fault

The fault is sliding in opposite directions.

A transform fault (click here) is a type of strike-slip fault wherein the relative horizontal slip is accommodating the movement between two ocean ridges or other tectonic boundaries. They are connected on both ends to other faults. A transform fault or transform boundary, also known as conservative plate boundary since these faults neither create nor destroy lithosphere, is a type of fault whose relative motion is predominantly horizontal....

The shallow quakes dominate the history of the region.

Epicenters of earthquakes (click here) in the Middle East. You can easily make out the boundaries of the Arabian plate since it is surrounded by earthquakes but the plate itself has little earthquake activity. This plate is moving generally toward the north. As it pushes up into the Iran it causes very serious earthquakes there and continue to build the mountains there. I the Levant region it slides north forming the Jordan Valley....

This brings up the point so many are talking about in Turkey. The people have been pushing for quake proof dwellings for some time. This is a failure of the government to build the housing demanded by the Turkish public.

Hatay, Turkey, Feb 17 - Residents (click here) of a luxury housing complex in southern Turkey thought their apartments were 'earthquake-proof' until the structure toppled like a domino in last week's devastating earthquake, leaving hundreds feared dead....

February 17, 2023

By Jason Beaubein and Claire Harbage

Samandag, Turkey — Yasin Pinarbasi (click here) usually works in an office in the Turkish capital Ankara. Now the civil engineer is clomping across unstable earthquake debris inside a four-story apartment building northeast of the city of Samandag.

From the outside the building appears to be in reasonably good condition, but once he enters there's a cinder block wall that has collapsed on the ground floor. Chunks of plaster and broken tile are strewn across the entryway.

"This building is highly damaged," Pinarbasi says. "It must be demolished."...

Entire families are dead. Unfortunately they are unable to complain. Humanitarian aid is important for the refugees. The region is unstable. The idea of rebuilding soon is imprudent. Turkey is a large country and can absorb many of the refugees.

20 February 2023

Oliver Holmes, Elena Morresi and Finbarr Sheehy

Death toll of 47,000 (click here) expected to rise and WHO says 26 million people need assistance across both countries....

The issue with Syria is bigger and the United Nations needs to assess the ability of the Alawite community to maintain their people in Syria. The Alawites aren't supportive of Assad. They never approved of all the killing. Assad is Alawite, but, he is not their favorite son. Russia did a lot of damage to Syria. The country is splintered and it rarely shows because it is an autocracy.

The Alawites of that region had a very viable economy. It won't survive under continued instability.

I am proud of my President.

He was in Kyiv while an air raid siren was blaring. Joe Biden is a great President of the United States of American. He is unafraid of the threat.

 

I didn’t expect the President Biden to be assessing the genocide and refugee status in Western Europe today.

I will be writing in two hours, but, my assessment will wait until he returns.