Thousands of people died is one of the worst earthquakes to hit parts of Turkey, Syria, and the neighbouring region, media reports said.
The major 7.8 magnitude earthquake was followed by two other strong quakes that devastated wide swaths of Turkey and Syria yesterday.
The quake hit at a depth of 18 kilometres and was centred in southern Turkey, near the northern border of Syria, according to the US Geological Survey.
It was centred in the southeastern province of Kahramanmaras and sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the streets and was felt as far away as Cairo.
A media report explained why did it happen, stating that the Earth's crust is composed of three layers- the crust, mantle, and core and the planet is divided among pieces and where these pieces meet are called fault lines. This is where the layers grind and rub against each other, the report maintained.
Researchers have said that these plates keep trying to move but are bound together by the friction of rubbing up against an adjoining one. But, on certain occasions, when the tension builds up, they can snap past each other quickly, releasing a large amount of energy.
What happened underneath the surface of Turkey was that one plate moved west while the other moved east — jerking past each other to create the devastating quake. Researchers said the earthquake was a strike-slip quake, where two tectonic plates slide past each other horizontally.
The region has been susceptible to such quakes over the centuries due to the fault lines underneath. Monday’s quake occurred in a seismically active area known as the East Anatolian fault zone, which has produced damaging earthquakes in the past.
The quake hit near heavily populated areas. The epicentre was near Gaziantep, a major city and provincial capital in Turkey. The affected regions were also home to vulnerable buildings.
Since the area was not hit by a major quake for over a century, the preparedness was low and so was the structural integrity of the high-rise buildings. Officials reported thousands of buildings collapsed in the wake of the earthquake. They included “pancake” collapses, where upper floors of a building fall straight down onto the lower floors — a sign that the buildings couldn’t absorb the shaking.
With the fault lines remaining quiet, there is no way to predict these quakes. Researchers have long warned that predicting when a fault line will become active is extremely difficult.