As Turkey reels from its deadliest earthquake in decades, some residents of Istanbul have already turned their growing anxiety elsewhere – towards the next big quake.
“We live in distress,” said Aysegul Rahvanci, a lifetime Istanbul resident, of her fears about a possible strong earthquake in the city.
“Our life equals to anxiety.”
Many people living in Turkey’s largest city shared Rahvanci’s feelings, in particular following the massive earthquakes – with magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.6 – on Monday that killed more than 21,000 people and wounded more than 80,000 others in southeastern Turkey as of Saturday. Thousands of others were killed in Syria. Officials said they expect the death toll to continue to rise.
The country is particularly prone to earthquakes, as it lies in an area where several tectonic plates meet. Quakes usually occur along the boundaries between plates. The North Anatolian Fault, which divides the Eurasian and Anatolian plates, runs close to Istanbul.
According to Sukru Ersoy, a professor of geology from Istanbul’s Yildiz Technical University, the question is when a powerful earthquake will hit Istanbul, not if it will happen.
“With the data we have on the past earthquakes, and through certain modellings, we can say that an Istanbul earthquake is near and we would not even be surprised if the city is hit by it today,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that it was impossible to know when the disaster would take place.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said in a recent interview that there were some 90,000 buildings that were highly vulnerable to earthquakes in the megalopolis with a population of some 20 million people.
The mayor said another 170,000 buildings were in the medium-risk status in case of a strong earthquake, according to research conducted by Istanbul Municipality.
After Monday’s earthquakes, more than 6,400 buildings have reportedly collapsed in southeastern Turkey.
