The 2003 Bingöl earthquake hit eastern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

with a

moment magnitude The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

of 6.4 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent'') on 1 May at . The epicenter of this

strike-slip In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tecton ...

earthquake was in

Bingöl Province Bingöl Province ( tr, , lit=province of a thousand lakes, '' ku, Parêzgeha Çewlîg'', ) is a province of Turkey in Eastern Anatolia. The province was known as Çapakçur Province (from ) until 1945 when it was renamed as Bingöl province. Its ...

, 15 km north of

Bingöl Bingöl ( diq, Çolig; ku, Çewlik; hy, Ճապաղջուր, translit=Chapaghjur) is a city in Eastern Turkey and the capital of Bingöl Province. Etymology One of the historical names for the city, ''Bingöl'' literally means ''thousand lake ...

. At least 177 people were killed, and 625 buildings collapsed or suffered heavy damage in the affected region. Eighty-four of the fatalities occurred when a dormitory block collapsed in a boarding school in Celtiksuyu.

Tectonic setting

Most of Turkey lies on the

Anatolian Plate The Anatolian Plate is a continental tectonic plate comprising most of the Anatolia (Asia Minor) peninsula (and the country of Turkey). To the east, the East Anatolian Fault, a left lateral transform fault, forms a boundary with the Arabian Pl ...

, which is being forced westwards by the collision between the

Arabian Plate The Arabian Plate is a minor tectonic plate in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres. It is one of the three continental plates (along with the African and the Indian Plates) that have been moving northward in geological history and collidi ...

and the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

. This westward movement is accommodated by two large strike-slip fault zones, the west–east trending right lateral

North Anatolian Fault The North Anatolian Fault (NAF) ( tr, Kuzey Anadolu Fay Hattı) is an active right-lateral strike-slip fault in northern Anatolia, and is the transform boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Plate. The fault extends westward fro ...

in the north of the country and the SW-NE trending left lateral

East Anatolian Fault The East Anatolian Fault ( tr, Doğu Anadolu Fay Hattı) is a major strike-slip fault zone in eastern Turkey. It forms the transform type tectonic boundary between the Anatolian Plate and the northward-moving Arabian Plate. The difference in t ...

towards the south-east. Movement on these two faults have been responsible for many large and damaging earthquakes historically.

Earthquake

The earthquake occurred on May 1, 2003, with a depth of 15 km (9.3 mi). It was a strike-slip event, lasting about 17 seconds with a magnitude of 6.4. It occurred at 3:27 am local time.

Damage

The earthquake damaged hundreds of buildings made of reinforced concrete and masonry. Many school buildings constructed within the last six years were heavily damaged. A total of 177 people were killed. 84 of the fatalities occurred when a dormitory block collapsed in a boarding school. A total 8,417 houses being damaged, of which 305 collapsed, 3,000 heavily damaged, 2,566 moderately damaged, and 2,546 slightly damaged. More than 90% of the schools in Bingöl were impacted, four schools collapsed, and 11 were lightly damaged. The school where the dormitory block collapsed was a 5-story building, which itself collapsed within seconds. Three hospitals in Bingöl were damaged.

References

External links

* * 2003 disasters in Turkey 2003 Bingöl 2003 earthquakes 2003 in Turkey History of Bingöl Province May 2003 events in Turkey {{earthquake-stub

Tectonic setting

Earthquake

Damage

See also

References

Further reading

External links