Arab News Japan

TOKYO: A Japanese earthquake expert believes Turkiye and its neighboring countries could see further earthquakes of the same magnitude as the recent 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkiye and Syria at dawn on Monday.

YAGI Yoji, professor of seismology at the University of Tsukuba and an expert in faults, said in an article and interviews with local media, “There are several faults near the epicenter of this earthquake where the northeastern Anatolian plates converge with the Arabian plate, and this leads to the establishment of a complex tectonic structure between them. The stress accumulates and when it reaches the peak of tension, these plates collide with each other, releasing huge energy-causing shifts in the earth’s layers, leading to an earthquake.”

“In the future, earthquakes of the same magnitude are likely to occur,” Yagi predicted. He noted that in January 2020, a 6.7-magnitude earthquake occurred near the East Anatolian Fault and many people died due to building collapses.

In 1939, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurred in eastern Erzincan, killing more than 30,000 people. There were also other earthquakes that killed about 17,000 people.

According to an analysis conducted by the US Geological Survey, the depth of the epicenter of Monday’s first earthquake – 7.8 on the Richter scale – was 17.9 kilometers below the surface of the earth, and the depth of the epicenter of the second earthquake –7.5 on the Richter scale – was 10 kilometers below the surface of the earth. Because the two earthquakes occurred at a relatively shallow depth, the earth shook violently near their epicenters and caused devastation over large areas.