News that will make Türkiye nervous! 30 faults that are ready to produce earthquakes have been detected

Sözbilir said that in a scientific study conducted by the relevant ministry in 1996, nearly 15 faults that did not produce earthquakes were identified and that six of them had broken to date.

Sözbilir, who stated that they started a study to determine the status of the faults across the country after the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş in 2023, said, "There are 485 faults identified in Türkiye since 2011. Among them, there is a fault type that we call 'seismic gap'. These are evaluated in the class of faults that are due to produce earthquakes."

Sözbilir explained that they prioritize earthquakes that have occurred on fault lines in the last 125 years, and said:

"If there are no earthquakes, this means that the faults accumulate stress without producing earthquakes. This is our first starting point. Our second starting point is that, especially in the last 20 years, we have started to apply the method of cutting and examining faults in Türkiye. When this method called 'paleoseismology' was applied, we revealed the earthquakes that the faults produced in the past and accordingly found the earthquake recurrence interval of the fault. There is also the time elapsed since the last earthquake of the fault. The closer the earthquake recurrence intervals are to each other or the more they overlap, the sooner the fault will produce an earthquake. When we evaluate according to all these criteria, we have revealed that there are faults in the 30 seismic gap class on the scale of Turkey, in other words, faults that can produce an earthquake at any time."

Sözbilir, who drew attention to the fact that a devastating earthquake is expected on the fault line formed by the Kumburgaz, Adalar and Avcılar segment in the south of Istanbul, noted the following:

"There are actually certain faults in the sea in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. But apart from these, there are nearly 30 faults on land. In Western Anatolia, we can count the Tuzla in Izmir, Gökçeyazı segmented Balıkesir, Eskişehir faults. In Central Anatolia, the Tuz Gölü, Kayseri-Erciyes and Erkilet faults fall into this class. Most of the North Anatolian Fault is broken, but some of it, such as the Yedisu Fault on the Erzincan and Bingöl sides, are considered to be in the seismic gap class. When we go east, faults such as Malatya and Ovacık are considered to be in the seismic gap class. Faults that have not produced an earthquake for 3,000 or 4,000 years. They are constantly accumulating stress. There is the Southeastern Anatolian thrust belt. This is also a very large-scale fault line. Here, the Şirvan, Cizre and Yüksekova faults fall into the seismic gap class."

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE IN PLACES ON FAULT Sözbilir stated that they delivered the reports they prepared to the municipalities where the faults they were working on were located, and that they held meetings with the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change.

Sözbilir, who pointed out that the construction on these faults should be prevented, said, "First of all, these faults should be evaluated in spatial planning in terms of construction. Construction on these faults should be prevented and restricted with the bands we call 'fault protection bands'. If there is a building stock on the faults, it is necessary to reveal what the movement they will make when this fault breaks means in terms of the building. If the damage percentage is high, the building should be evaluated within the scope of urban transformation."

Source: AA