One of tile American Volunteers reports. 1 was just r~sing by and I fleara ~l believe I heard with my eMs, sort ti-f a muffled moan and therm with a stethoscope knackut on concrete.., We asked the persoato knock on concrete, Windeed therewasa )eison There, anti i behave, i heard knacking. she sald
Nobody can be surprised that an earthquake of thIs rrngn{tude•bigger than that which rocked Kobe in Japan in 1~9S, thrciu~h nothing like as massive as tht one $n Mexico cIty then yea-rs earlier - struck Turkey Tue entire country lies in a ring Of fire, a band of fatht-&lne where me eart!t’s thctonic piatescolilde, which co~rers the pacific rim, and rthes across Central Asia to the Mediterranean Earthquakes have shaken Turkey periourcalry, the most devastating W all beIng in in 1939, iMlen nearly ~,mc people died.
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Turkey Grounded by Earthquake
flij~ping rnrc’ucn towns and cLtLe~ ~s peop(e slept, the fltremor was the wont to shake earrncjuake•prone 1l,ir~ey in nait ~ ceritn~, EentJ3I on the Wit) industriaL town of izrnir, wrdcli borders the sea of Marmara, the ciuake measured 7~4 on tne elchter scale Treflibllrtg was feLt as Faras Ankara, the capit~I, 340 k~ometerS 1210 itiilesP sway tip to 10,000 victims remained tuned under me nibble oP collapsed apartment r~ocks at Tvrkey’S biggest navaL base. GOLC.Uk. two ö2y~ f~E1 tne nuake octurreL
In F-tie aftermatn ~F tt,a 45~second~long tremor! hundred Of dazed residents tri Lzmit, many Of them bleedifl~. wandered flci~it the wreckage of row Liport row of crumpled bSIcLUigs, searching forsigns of ife Pair arflOr~ Surv~¼eor5 began to turn w rags as rielp from the auuorities rail eO to reac~ treni, usin~i ayes arid pica anti their bare nanos cursea the government as they sought to pull Out tfleir family and friends. Local hospitall were overwhelmed: the wonded lay lined tip On the floor. holding up their own drlp&
The question Turks are asKing Is why this week’s tremor killed so many people, Part of the an~-wer, according to tue Turkish authorities. is that itoccurreci jn the country~s most densely po puPated region, whose industrle~ draw thoucands of migrants Irarri the poorer ce*ttaP and eastern parts of Turkey every year. this was corflJOftlldeC by the time mat the quake struck ResLdents Of many apartment buildirics were as’eep, aid so were crushed by the we(9ht of cOfl~psin9 buildings and debris. ~-lad it occurred En me cEay, they mIght well ha¼ie been CMJt CO the streets aria so safer.
Lessons From Turkey Earthquake
~epcrts of flattened bu dirIis across the area, rippling ot electric poles and leaning of power tiDes apart, toppling of minarets of do!ens of macclues, breakIng Of huge fire at the Turkeys biggest refInery ana ü lazing out of cartiot blockIng of roads to me towns were some of tha Worst scenes, one can only imagine
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Trainee officer rProjecrsj
IISMI INEJOCQ)
It was not the aider buildIngs that colrapsed tilLs week. Indeed, many of the older moscru-es lost nothing more than the odd mifl~ret. Rather, it apoeared to be the newer buildings, made of Flimsy materials and put up by Cowboy bWlden, that gave in. in Istanbul, me country’s biuclest city. hundreds of apartment Diocks wer literaily pulvertsed Dy the Irn pact Of th~ tremcw. Ft is crtoucjlit mat soffie of these blocks may have deen buIlt after contracts were nancled out to conies b~( corrupt mur~cinaI Officials, Worst wasP fact tflt rescue teams wnLch flew from Swiss U.S., Greece. Cerniany. struggled toreacn residents buried under do~ens Of coiiapsed buildings, Frantic searcrp fc~ç possible survivors was caNed off on Friday, the Vth ALpgLJst when rescue teams found no signs Of life beneath the ruins of mo-un taWrs of twisted concrete anti steel. But the worst was that some cries were only unanswered tlerause rescue teams struggled to reach residents buried under dozens of collapsed bulldlngt Witnesses said, 1n one place the earth had shIfted 5 rneterstotiiewew,
crantic s ivots tare at wrangred steel anc concrete to free loved ones and offIcials sought international aid to send smuffer dogs and lIfting equIpment to he’p to rescue
Teams of rescuers did use dfliLs anti other eciuipment CO dig through tne debris and tried to POD up wnate-ver possIble but such efforts resulted in some flashed no Des when no Survivors were found and cries for help dted away In 5 day oreration,
£~pJanaUon of randomness Of earthpuakes trail at devastation rtas Je4t no reasonable tcigical e~planatlon, As there were no answers for one street unscattered and very nextstreet massi½ely affected, or one b~lldlng havIng Fattened Into a pancake pile, Its neighbour half-tilted lIke shuffled pack of cards and the ~iery next tiuliding left upright as if scorn fyi a-f nature’s brutal force.
It was but the bulldFngs which kthed 2nd nov tne earthQuake, scientists admitted, they had learnt key ~essofls from the deadly quake ifl Tufl~#~
0-tuer areas which need ro be l~cikedu into are tile joints and bracir~gj0int5 have tube carefully designed that the stresses are not transferred to lowest section ofthefrarne Also bracEngs cortriect varKius ficois ano keeps theni from moving relative to eacP~ other in an eartTh quake
Sif the theory holds truer then the next
should be. in the sea of Marmara, which borden Turkeys biggest city. Most experts agree it could Occur within a decade. This Is a wake up call for all of us, not Just Istanbul.” It is said. Lessons learned from turkey need tD be learnt and there Is no option than to build seismicallysafe buildings flO matter the ton.
~TeFl rneryiy cnilOren ace alive; pleaded Mu~affar (arIa gr-abbLng thC arm of a Reuters r~p.orter, Minutes lacer a pair of tiare feet, dearly lifeless, poked through the tangleof steel and creteano the searcn haltea brIef IV before nei~nbour struck gp a loud waiL
images ot destruction in Turkey conTh-nwd what seisrmceriglneersalreaGykflew, that a powerful eurtflqufle has an ahy in a weak building.
Most of rue framed concrete buildings had waFiFrW Of bricks and mortar wnlcn turned them into massive stRictures. Coliapse of mass at that wale in the evenL of a guake wouia kill Another reason assigned was lack Of uniformity ~f load in~ in tne framed structure eg. fFrst ficior had gia~ window front while lower ‘ever *acl brick walls AlSO anotner very important factor was lower reInforcing steel with plain bars wflFcfl which oulled out much mora easIly Torsteel would nave had Deiterçrlp In concrett Lessons from California quake taught engrneers to nave ii9nter weight steei &ames wnich reoucea hweignt of the buildings and had hinged short Jo inn which kept ttuilthngs agile. tarthnuakes nave prwed that rigid joints in buildings are weak points wnlte it ~s tiesiraoie that structures be alloweo to sway which rend er steel frames tO tIC 1c1ea1
it has been observed that Turkish engineers knew, now tç buflc$ in seismic wiles arid even cocai prowsions are welt Faic! out But that remained ohly On nap~r in a developEng country like Turkey, wnere stringent building regulations exist tiut are seldom appieci, ~nci where governmen~~ nave more oressing tasks than the urganisation of earthquake drills, a natura] disaster on this scale would tlave unfortunateiy aKnost always kill many people. but perhabs the main reason for the large nuniber of deaths was the nature of ti-ia apartment buJ~dirigs themselves The system failed to Product earthQuake resistant buildings. There h~v~ been renorts which said that ‘middieclass dream fleighboilrr built Eiy the building tompanies had mixed sea sand into the concrete, and th!s was admitted under a ~~retext that tfie builders Chd not know, it was wrong. Suth budding practices had teen a cause of rn~oc colLapses in Turkey
Financial analysis brought out estimates Of rebuitthng
alone whJch arrtourtted to around US’S B biPlion turkey an area, the Size Of Belgium and 1-Poiland con~Dined Was devasuted Turkey has a 20 billion deficit wiLl? annual irtflatjon Of 5~f% Government was in the process Elf securing uSSS *rLIion loan from IMF to be aDie to Increase econortlic standing, to enable cut-aericit A DLJrdeT of t!
0 billion dollars Clue t~ present destruction would fijrtl. aggravate me economic crisis of Tiiricey
Concerns of ~e Future
While the scientist riEl imagined the impacts Of eartticiuake of this magnitude, tut having seen it meant lot more, Turkey quake of i.~ magnitude was locate u on Anatolian fault which jumped over taices and Ignited other faults. The rnajcr concerns of tne future are, the theory mat quake’s seisrnlclty or tIie movement or its epicent’~ rias been migrating westward towarns istanbul, a City
1~ million.
Turkey’s quake and the 800-kilometer C5)}-mile fault is important to seismologis’ ; and geolo~l~t~ Who study the San ,Andreas. which i~ nearly Eden ttcai in length and type Both run along two tectonic plates grinding against eecn tither
in the eartFwuake. the Anatolian fault ;umped aver a !•klIo meter i3-m~Iei lake aito skipped from one fault t~’
another, activating me secona
me earthquake jumped take Satianca anti resumed on the other sida oozens of waterfront homes fall into the iake Scientsts can’t know ~wny ]tieape-ci across the lake, located between limit and crushed city Of Coicult Perhaps It released energy In spurts of the same intensity ~ut in different dlrecitons,
Seismologists also worry about the western migration of quakes along the Anatoliar fault, which began when a i9~g quake killed 3!,OX people in eastern Turkey.
AS It tiowly moved west, 10 earthquai~es of at least a 67 magnitude erupted between 1939 ana ‘[992