Earthquake Casualties Causes
VOA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
On Feb. 6, 2023, a massive 7.8 earthquake struck southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria. It caused many casualties that can be explained by many factors.
“The disaster, with a combined death toll in Turkey and neighboring Syria exceeding 41,000, has ravaged cities in both countries, leaving many survivors homeless in near-freezing winter temperatures,” according to CNBC. “More than a week after a massive earthquake struck, as the focus of the aid effort shifted to helping people now struggling without shelter or enough food in the bitter cold.”
The damage an earthquake does to a city mostly depends on the country’s place on the world map and where it will hit, in which if an earthquake hits a densely populated area the destruction it will cause will be like the recent tragedy in Turkey and Syria.
“When earthquakes of this magnitude happen near a populated region or in an urban center, they’re going to cause tremendous destruction,” according to professor of geological sciences Karl Mueller. “Depending on where you are in the world and how buildings are constructed, buildings can collapse like we’ve seen in Turkey.”
Turkey is a country that has almost never experienced an earthquake for many years, which could explain its infrastructure not holding up to the destruction of the two earthquakes.
“Because this region has escaped a major quake for decades, it's possible that some older buildings are vulnerable,” researcher Faith Bulut said. "Sometimes there are very old things, built before the rules existed."
Hilmi Hacaloğlu, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
There is a reason that Turkish buildings are not up to standard to tolerate earthquakes. It mostly falls towards the failure of the previous governments ignoring their infrastructure requirements for the population, hence leaving the population with a vulnerable city to earthquakes.
“These residential complexes could not have been built without state-issued building permits and licenses, without the approving signatures of nominally independent building inspectors, and without the necessary reports from laboratories doing quality control of construction materials,” former Turkey correspondent for the Guardian, Constanze Letsch said. “They could not have gone ahead without the government’s many changes to construction and real estate legislation, all meant to facilitate the bloated growth of a destructive and insatiable construction sector.”
Although earthquakes and casualties are inevitable in the world, there is no doubt that this natural disaster can be survived by future populations.
“Earthquakes can cause incredible devastation, especially in regions that are suffering politically and economically,” Shideh Dashti said in an article for CU Boulder Today. “They also offer a giant laboratory for scientists to learn and apply lessons to reduce losses in the future.”