The number of fatalities from the two significant earthquakes that shook southeast Turkey on February 6 has increased to 39,672, according to Interior Minister Soylu on Friday.
Soylu stated during a live videoconference carried on CNN Türk that after the earthquakes, search and rescue operations took precedence, and 20,000 structures were checked out in this regard.
He mentioned that professionals have examined about half of the structures in earthquake zones in ten provinces to determine damage.
Though the latest earthquakes are dubbed the “disaster of the century” due to their sheer scale and unusually high death toll, earthquakes are nothing out of the ordinary with thousands of tremors taking place all over the country. Most of Türkiye is located on the Anatolian tectonic plate, which sits between two major plates, the Eurasian and African, and a minor one, the Arabian. As the larger African and Arabian plates shift, Türkiye is literally being squeezed, while the Eurasian plate impedes any northward movement. Thus, Türkiye sits on several fault lines. The most potentially devastating fault line in the country is the North Anatolian fault line (NAF), where the Anatolian and Eurasian plates meet. It runs from just south of Istanbul all the way to northeastern Türkiye. The NAF has produced devastating earthquakes throughout history.