Several Turkish cities were devastated on Sunday by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake and numerous aftershocks that struck the east of the country.
The initial quake struck 16 kilometres north of the city of Van, but nearby city of Ercis was the most heavily damaged according to Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has visited the site of the quake. Several hundred people are feared dead and rescue teams are at work finding survivors.
Monitoring by the United States Geological Survey has already recorded around 30 aftershocks, one of magnitude 6.0.
In 1999 a quake 1,000 km to the west of this weekend’s killed 17,000 people and left 500,000 homeless while a 7.3 magnitude quake 70 km from this earthquake killed several thousand in 1976, notes a statement from the agency.
“This earthquake is a reminder of the many deadly seismic events that Turkey has suffered in the recent past,” says the USGS.
See also – Clock ticking for an Istanbul earthquake, A wake-up call for seismic-hazard preparedness in Turkey, from Nature in 2010.
Map: USGS.