More than 30,000 people have died and another 80,000 have been injured in the 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes that devastated southeastern Turkeyand which have also left some 3,500 dead in Syria.
Turkish authorities have reported that some 158,000 people have been evacuated to other provinces.
The breach of the Construction regulations and the successive amnesties given by the Government to buildings erected without a license explain the enormous number of fatalitiesaccording to a complaint by the College of Architects of Turkey.
“The main reason for this enormous tragedy is the permission granted to buildings built without respecting construction regulations,” denounced Emin Koramaz, president of the Union of Chambers of Architects and Engineers of Turkey (TMMOB), in dialogue with the EFE agency.
Devastation from a satellite
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, known as Nasa, analyzes satellite images that show the devastation in Turkish territory.
“These were very large and powerful earthquakes that ruptured to the surface in a long series of fault segments. This generated an extremely strong tremor over a very large area that struck many cities and crowded towns. The length and magnitude of the The rupture of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake was similar to the 1906 earthquake that destroyed San Francisco,” said Eric Fielding, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The 1906 earthquake he mentioned left some 3,000 dead in that city in the United States, making it one of the worst.
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As modern times have increased the response capacity in such catastrophes, the Nasa created a preliminary damage map in order to identify the areas with the greatest devastation in Turkey to help the work of relief agencies. He went to his observatories and focused on three cities: Türkoğlu, Kahramanmaraş and Nurdagi.
The red color of each pixel – the size of a baseball field – indicates serious damage “to buildings, homes and infrastructure or changes in the landscape, while the orange and yellow areas have moderate or partial damage.”
The illustrations were made possible by a satellite that has synthetic aperture radar. In short, their task is to “send microwave pulses toward the Earth’s surface and listen for the reflections of those waves to map the landscape, including buildings.”
The comparisons were made with the images captured from February 8, 2023 and data from April 2021 and April 2022. The map is updated in real time and mostly shows Turkey in red.
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“In addition to mapping the damage caused by the satellites where possible, we are using satellites to track increased risks of landslides, power outages and weather that could pose challenges for response efforts“, they concluded on their website.
destruction from the air
Added to the NASA images, the Maxar Technologies company exhibited the damage in the cities of Antakya, Kirikhan, Kahramanmaras, Islahiye and Nurdagi. For example, one shows how Islahiye looked on October 4, 2022 and how it was left in the middle of rubble after February 7, 2023.
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Buildings on the ground can be seen in other captures in the city of Antakya:
In Nurdagi, they photographed a particular break in a highway that runs through some farms and residential areas:
Grain silos now on the ground were portrayed in other Turkic villages:
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*With information from EFE
You can also read:
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– Crow behavior causes concern in different parts of the world.
– Earthquake in Turkey flattened historic buildings: See before and after photos.
– Turkey and Syria: the hundreds of children who were left nameless after the tragedy.
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