Aaron747 wrote:

Where did the previous thread go? We had some good discussion going on technical aspects of the event and why the damage is so extensive over a large area.

ltbewr wrote:

A 7.8 Richter Scale level earthquake hit mainly in the central and south central regions of Turkey and northeastern Syria today, Feb. 6th. By late in the day it is broadly estimated close to 3000 have been killed and over 13,000 injured. Serious aftershocks of up to 7.5 have occurred as well. Rescue efforts are underway. within Turkey and Syria and some international help is being arranged. https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-new ... index.html

zakuivcustom wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

Where did the previous thread go? We had some good discussion going on technical aspects of the event and why the damage is so extensive over a large area.

Not sure what happened either. I saw a few replies to my comment but by then the thread was already deleted.

ltbewr wrote:

A 7.8 Richter Scale level earthquake hit mainly in the central and south central regions of Turkey and northeastern Syria today, Feb. 6th. By late in the day it is broadly estimated close to 3000 have been killed and over 13,000 injured. Serious aftershocks of up to 7.5 have occurred as well. Rescue efforts are underway. within Turkey and Syria and some international help is being arranged. https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-new ... index.html

The 7.5 from USGS is not even an aftershock...basically two huge earthquakes back to back.

The time the earthquake strikes, at 3am, only add to the devastation.

Aaron747 wrote:

Where did the previous thread go? We had some good discussion going on technical aspects of the event and why the damage is so extensive over a large area.

Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed.

pune wrote:

0 news about Syria ??? They are also in a war IIRC, wouldn't this on top of that make matters worse ???

https://news.yahoo.com/civil-war-makes- ... 03046.html

Aaron747 wrote:

pune wrote:

0 news about Syria ??? They are also in a war IIRC, wouldn't this on top of that make matters worse ???
https://news.yahoo.com/civil-war-makes- ... 03046.html

There has been plenty of coverage about the impact in Syria.

ltbewr wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

pune wrote:

0 news about Syria ??? They are also in a war IIRC, wouldn't this on top of that make matters worse ???
https://news.yahoo.com/civil-war-makes- ... 03046.html

There has been plenty of coverage about the impact in Syria.

Over 10 of 1000's of refugees from Syria are in Turkey and in the region where this earthquake occurred. https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/middleea ... r-AA17dkz3

Aaron747 wrote:

An excellent piece by environmental journalist Andy Revkin on the background of challenges in Turkey with quake preparedness and regulating contractors. In short, this kind of outcome was both predicted and repeatedly warned about.

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/ ... -calamity/

pune wrote:

0 news about Syria ??? They are also in a war IIRC, wouldn't this on top of that make matters worse ???

https://news.yahoo.com/civil-war-makes- ... 03046.html

pune wrote:

Omg, this is just going to get from bad to worse, IIRC, both these places have extremely cold climate like snow and stuff.

pune wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

An excellent piece by environmental journalist Andy Revkin on the background of challenges in Turkey with quake preparedness and regulating contractors. In short, this kind of outcome was both predicted and repeatedly warned about.

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/ ... -calamity/

Think that's partially both a policy and an implementation issue.

IIRC, only Japan is very strict about building codes and their building inspectors are also. And they have to be non-corrupt because loss of life in Japan is real and can be anytime. And Japan has had more than its shares of earthquakes.

https://medium.com/@briancpotter/japan- ... 2427beccfa

Aaron747 wrote:

Death toll now over 11,000 and will continue to rise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMzilnkzRlU

LCDFlight wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

Death toll now over 11,000 and will continue to rise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMzilnkzRlU

Yes, this is a pretty “remote” part of the world with a lot of poor and old construction techniques. The combined population of Turkey and Syria is 100 million (83 and 17, respectively.) It was a big quake. You can tell by the collapse of Roman ruins that it was a rare and destructive event likely to kill.

Also, the place where the General Directorate of Highways announced the open roads in the region..

Aaron747 wrote:

LCDFlight wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

Death toll now over 11,000 and will continue to rise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMzilnkzRlU

Yes, this is a pretty “remote” part of the world with a lot of poor and old construction techniques. The combined population of Turkey and Syria is 100 million (83 and 17, respectively.) It was a big quake. You can tell by the collapse of Roman ruins that it was a rare and destructive event likely to kill.

As structural engineers like to say, quakes generally don't kill people, bad buildings do. Following the disaster in Kobe in 1995, Japan revised the 1981 codes immediately and mandated retrofitting to several classes of structures. As a result even with the 2011 Tohoku quake being 63 times stronger than this event in Turkey, building collapses were not a widespread occurrence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyYshE34wJY

Given the cold temps and difficulty of rescue work (rescue resources have not even been able to enter Syria), the final toll may go over 100,000.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/08/crews-f ... quake.html

zakuivcustom wrote:

While Kobe Earthquake definitely serves as a big wake-up call for earthquake safety in Japan, it was also much shallower (~14km) vs. the 2011 quake (~29km) with the epicenter literally a few miles off Kobe's coast compare to the 2011 one which was like 50 miles off the coast. It was definitely the tsunami that was VERY deadly as people evacuate to supposedly "safe" evacuation point only for those to get destroy by the tsunami.

pune wrote:

It probably is bad taste but don't see any other way to directly help them, this way at least would be able to help them and also gain some cultural experience of Turkey maybe ???

pune wrote:

Would it be a good or a bad idea to say Visit Turkey say about a month, month and a half after this. Could have a sort of cheap holiday and also help the Turkish economy ???

It probably is bad taste but don't see any other way to directly help them, this way at least would be able to help them and also gain some cultural experience of Turkey maybe ???

Looking to know what people think ?? I am sure there are both positives and negatives to above.

pune wrote:

Would it be a good or a bad idea to say Visit Turkey say about a month, month and a half after this. Could have a sort of cheap holiday and also help the Turkish economy ???

It probably is bad taste but don't see any other way to directly help them, this way at least would be able to help them and also gain some cultural experience of Turkey maybe ???

Looking to know what people think ?? I am sure there are both positives and negatives to above.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Looking at Turkish buildings, we always said don’t go higher than you’re willing to fall and don’t enter a building you’re not willing to have come down on top of you. The Roman and Crusader ruins looked better. That’s in Adana, strangely.

Aaron747 wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Looking at Turkish buildings, we always said don’t go higher than you’re willing to fall and don’t enter a building you’re not willing to have come down on top of you. The Roman and Crusader ruins looked better. That’s in Adana, strangely.

That's probably a very sensible maxim to follow. Now what remains to be seen is if Turks will pressure their government to get serious about prevention. Far too many costly seismic lessons the last 30 years.

phatfarmlines wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Looking at Turkish buildings, we always said don’t go higher than you’re willing to fall and don’t enter a building you’re not willing to have come down on top of you. The Roman and Crusader ruins looked better. That’s in Adana, strangely.

That's probably a very sensible maxim to follow. Now what remains to be seen is if Turks will pressure their government to get serious about prevention. Far too many costly seismic lessons the last 30 years.

You'd think the Turks would have the means to institute Japan-style construction codes.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hollowed out state institutions, placed loyalists in key positions, and enriched his cronies—paving the way for this tragedy.

art wrote:

I see photos of housing developments where it looks like a number of identical high rise apartment blocks have been built. Some collapsed in the earthquake. Some did not. Does that mean that the blocks still standing should be demolished, being the same design and construction as the ones that did collapse?

As for replacing buildings that have collapsed or have been seriously damaged, would it not make sense to start new settlements away from the fault lines rather than rebuild in zones of destructive seismic activity unless rebuilding is to the sort of standard found in Japan?

Aaron747 wrote:

art wrote:

I see photos of housing developments where it looks like a number of identical high rise apartment blocks have been built. Some collapsed in the earthquake. Some did not. Does that mean that the blocks still standing should be demolished, being the same design and construction as the ones that did collapse?

As for replacing buildings that have collapsed or have been seriously damaged, would it not make sense to start new settlements away from the fault lines rather than rebuild in zones of destructive seismic activity unless rebuilding is to the sort of standard found in Japan?

There are a lot of failure modes - it’s hard to say with certainty, that’s for inspectors to determine. Generally speaking though, it is likely structures not to code or with substandard materials that survived have been substantially weakened by the quakes. Hard to imagine how they would be safe to inhabit without substantial retrofitting.

pune wrote:

Apart from that, the tardy response of the first responders and lack of equipment made it a bigger tragedy then it already is

QF7 wrote:

pune wrote:

Apart from that, the tardy response of the first responders and lack of equipment made it a bigger tragedy then it already is

No doubt there are plenty of things to criticize the government for but these are not among them. No country on earth has an infinite number of first responders sitting around waiting for a once in 50 or 100 years catastrophe. And no one has tens or hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment pre-staged on every street corner ready to go at a moment’s notice. Those measures would simply be unaffordable and a waste of resources that 99% of the time could be doing something productive in the economy.

Newark727 wrote:

You'd think at least one of the Middle East's many tinpot autocrats would have at least a moderate interest in enforcing proper building codes, but I guess not.

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Newark727 wrote:

You'd think at least one of the Middle East's many tinpot autocrats would have at least a moderate interest in enforcing proper building codes, but I guess not.

"it was corruption"...

Let's have the UN condemn corruption, like it did for child trafficking and slavery... That should do it !!!

VOX

On the morning of February 6, a pair of powerful earthquakes, 7.8 and 7.6, hit Turkey and Syria. On top of that, the region was hit with strong aftershocks, which made the destruction even worse. The death toll is already in the tens of thousands with many victims still lying beneath the rubble.

Multiple factors led to this earthquake being so devastating, like fault lines, neighborhoods still reeling from war and delayed rescue missions. But what made this earthquake particularly catastrophic was unsafe buildings. According to the Turkish government, over 6,000 buildings collapsed because of this earthquake. And that’s likely because of the way they were built.

This video will explain how bad building design made the Turkey-Syria earthquake more deadly than it had to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnlCRoBAcuw

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Newark727 wrote:

You'd think at least one of the Middle East's many tinpot autocrats would have at least a moderate interest in enforcing proper building codes, but I guess not.

"it was corruption"...

Let's have the UN outlaw corruption, like it did for child trafficking and slavery... That should do it !!!

VOX

On the morning of February 6, a pair of powerful earthquakes, 7.8 and 7.6, hit Turkey and Syria. On top of that, the region was hit with strong aftershocks, which made the destruction even worse. The death toll is already in the tens of thousands with many victims still lying beneath the rubble.

Multiple factors led to this earthquake being so devastating, like fault lines, neighborhoods still reeling from war and delayed rescue missions. But what made this earthquake particularly catastrophic was unsafe buildings. According to the Turkish government, over 6,000 buildings collapsed because of this earthquake. And that’s likely because of the way they were built.

This video will explain how bad building design made the Turkey-Syria earthquake more deadly than it had to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnlCRoBAcuw