Sitting on major fault lines, Turkey prone to powerful quakes: A timeline

November 2022: In November last year, northwestern Turkey was hit by an earthquake of 5.9 magnitude. The quake was centered in the town of Golkaya, in Duzce province, some 200 kilometers east of Istanbul, according to the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency.

April 2022: In April last year, the country witnessed another earthquake of 5.2 magnitude. The quake struck the town of Puturge in Malatya province. The tremor was recorded at a depth of 6.7 kilometres.

October 2020: A strong earthquake struck in October 2020 in the Aegean Sea between the Turkish coast and the Greek island of Samos. Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency had then said the earthquake was centered in the Aegean at a depth of 16.5 kilometers and registered at a 6.6 magnitude.

January 2020: A powerful quake struck eastern Turkey in January 2020. The 6.8 magnitude quake shook Elazig province, about 550 km east of the capital Ankara, and was followed by more than 270 aftershocks, 12 of which were over 4 magnitudes.

June 2017: A strong 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Aegean coast of western Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos. According to the US Geological Survey, the epicentre of the quake was in the Aegean sea 11 kilometres south of Plomari, a village on the southern coast of Lesbos.

2017 alone saw several earthquakes of up to 5.5 magnitudes that hit Turkey’s western Aegean coast.

October 2011: A 7.2 magnitude quake hit eastern Turkey in October 2011, killing several and leaving thousands homeless.

March 2010: An earthquake with 6.0 magnitude hit eastern Turkey in March 2010. The earthquake was centred near the village of Basyurt and followed by more than 50 aftershocks. The worst-hit area was the village of Okcular.

August 1999: In August 1999, as many as 17,000 people were killed by a powerful temblor that devastated nearby Kocaeli province and other parts of northwest Turkey. Officials said around 80 per cent of the buildings in the area were rebuilt or fortified following the 1999 earthquakes, which helped minimize damage.

The same year, around 800 people were killed in the powerful earthquake that hit Duzce in November.

According to a report by The New York Times, Stephen Hicks, a research fellow in seismology at Imperial College London, wrote on Twitter that at 7.8 magnitude, Monday’s quake had the same magnitude as one that killed about 30,000 people in December 1939 in northeast Turkey.

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