7 February 2023
First images of landslides from the 6 February 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes
Posted by Dave Petley
First images of landslides from the 6 February 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes
The true horror of the major Turkey-Syria earthquakes yesterday is beginning to unfold. With over 4,300 people now known to have died, but many more likely to be missing, this has been a very serious event. Most of the footage continues to feature collapses in the urban areas, with very little from the more rural areas. The picture in the more remote parts of the epicentral zone is likely to be desperate.
Meanwhile. as expected, images are starting to emerge of landslides triggered by the event. In common with other events, at the moment these focus on the roads, probably because the slides themselves are a barrier to reaching the upland zones.
On Twitter, Sokagin Sesi Gazetesi has tweeted a short video of a large failure on a riverbank; the text suggests that this is on the road between Adana and Gaziantep:-
DEPREM SONRASI ADANA GAZİANTEP YOLU! pic.twitter.com/7T05gVOHt0
— Sokağınsesi Gazetesi (@sokaginsesigaz1) February 6, 2023
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The image below is a still from the video:-
The lateral flow landslide on the road between Adana and Gaziantep following the 6 February 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes. Image from a video tweeted by Sokagin Sesi Gazetesi.
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This appears to be a lateral spread failure on a very large scale. The road bed could be fill?
Meanwhile, Erk Acarer has tweeted an image of another large failure on a road:-
Yol yaptı… pic.twitter.com/i9JbVbBEaH
— Erk Acarer (@eacarer) February 6, 2023
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The location of this failure is not clear, but once again this could well be a lateral spread.
Meanwhile, the USGS has continued to update its model of the landslide probability for the Turkey-Syria earthquakes. This is the map for the Mw=7.8 event:-
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And this is the one for the Mw=7.5 event that occurred a few hours later:-
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Unfortunately, the epicentral area was cloudy yesterday, so there is no visible satellite imagery as yet of the earthquake-affected areas. The forecast today is better, and tomorrow is good, so images should start to become available. Note though that the forecast night time temperature in Gaziantep is -6° C tonight, and will be lower in the upland areas. These temperatures are likely to be magnifying the human the impact of the Turkey-Syria earthquakes.
Dave Petley is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. His blog provides commentary and analysis of landslide events occurring worldwide, including the landslides themselves, latest research, and conferences and meetings.
7.8M TURKEY EARTHQUAKE IS ASSOCIATED WITH QUADRUPLE K SYMMETRIC ASTRONOMICAL PATTERN.
[No. D.]
Does this mean that earthquake are more likely to happen in certain spots? Are they different or unusual in any way from normal earthquakes in the same region? Thanks for this, Matt. It’s very interesting and I would like to share it with others who might not know about your work.