Turkey's world is one of the most important Alpine-Himalayan seismic zone located on an earthquake belt that expresses Prof. Dr. İlhan Osmanşahin, therefore, earthquakes, not when, should be kept constantly on the agenda, he said.
Emphasizing that the earthquake agenda should be based on awareness about what should be done in order not to scare our people, but to accept and acknowledge that they will be at least with a minimum loss, Osmanşahin emphasized that awareness should be given to everyone starting from primary education and earthquake consciousness should be created at social level.
QUESTION: Mr. Osmanşahin, we come to the fact that Turkey is an earthquake; how active fault lines in Turkey? What can you say as scientists? Is there any scientific data on this? currently most risky regions in Turkey, which province? What is the risk of earthquakes in Turkey?
ANSWER: Active fault lines in Turkey has been revealed by scientists. To put it more briefly into detail, all types of movement appears in the globe are available and near Turkey. The solid earth crust we live on is 100 km thick on land and 50 km thick on oceans. This layer of the earth is not monolithic and consists of large parts of continents and extensions under the ocean and small parts of Anatolia and the Arabian Peninsula. These parts move relative to each other on the plastic structure called the mantle under the shell. These movements are in the order of a few inches.
TURKEY HAVE TWO SEPARATE BIG FAULT LINE
The main movements affecting Turkey can be summarized briefly as follows: African Plate is moving northward and toward the bottom of the Anatolian branch. The Arabian Plateau, which moves northward with Africa, also compresses Anatolia towards the northeast due to the opening in the middle of the Red Sea and causes it to shift westward. The main ruptures, causing earthquakes These movements result (faults) are from south to north lie entering Turkey from Hatay border above the northeast towards the East Anatolian Fault Zone (EAFZ), with EAFZ Bingol Karliova crossing westwards to the Black Sea about North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) which continues in parallel and is divided into three branches (Izmit Bay, Gemlik Bay and Bursa Plain) in the Sea of Marmara. NAFZ and DAFZ move in lateral directions and produce shallow and large earthquakes. These fault zones that extend for kilometers should not be considered as continuous surfaces or planes towards the deep. This is the reason why it is called a zone.
ANATOLIA BETWEEN TWO FAULT LINES
As the movements continue, the jams increase and the fracture occurs when the masses cannot carry, the fault breaks where it finds weakness. As can be seen, we cannot say that repeated earthquakes in the same place will break the same lines on the surface. The fractures that begin at a depth of kilometers and its traces on the earth are the weakest points at that time. Between these two fault zones, Anatolia shifts to the west about 2 centimeters per year. In western, southeastern and southwestern Anatolia, there are many large and small sloping, vertical or near-vertical faults. In addition, the last two devastating Marmara Region earthquakes occurred in 1894 and 1999. There is a movement of about 2 meters in total time of about 2 centimeters per year, and this is the average value of the break in the 1999 earthquake. As can be seen from this brief information, even if small earthquakes occur from time to time, large earthquakes need large accumulation of energy to occur.
NO QUALIFIED SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
QUESTION: Considering that Turkey in particular is well prepared for earthquakes in Istanbul and made the necessary scientific studies Are you? What can be done about earthquake preparedness?
ANSWER: We were prepared for earthquakes in Turkey, unfortunately say that the necessary and sufficient scientific studies done on this subject is not possible. In addition to the deficiencies that have been going on since the past, the mistakes made clearly stand out. As an earthquake country, since we cannot prevent earthquakes, we have to carry out the necessary studies and take precautions.
THE RIGHT SELECTION OF THE RESIDENTIAL AREAS
First of all, it is essential to select the settlement areas correctly and to construct structures suitable for the ground structure. At this point, Turkey in general have great errors and omissions ongoing for many years. Although urban transformation practices are an opportunity to eliminate these errors, we cannot say that this opportunity has been evaluated in the studies carried out to date. There is much to say about this. It is necessary to consider in detail under another heading.