What caused the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Turkey?


Turkey and Syria were hit by a massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Monday that caused widespread damage and left over 5,000 people dead. But what exactly caused the tremor and why was it so destructive?
Turkey is an "earthquake hot spot" because three different tectonic plates converge in the area: the Arabian, Anatolian, and African plates, writes The Washington Post. At the same time, the Arabian plate has been moving northward toward the Eurasian plate, causing Turkey to almost be pushed aside, NPR explains.
"Arabia has slowly been moving north and has been colliding with Turkey, and Turkey is moving out of the way to the west," Michael Steckler of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory told NPR. The plate has been moving approximately 11 millimeters per year, and has for thousands of years caused earthquakes in the area.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
But scientists say that Monday's quake was one of the most powerful in almost a century and that it was also long overdue. "It was unusually quiet in the last century," commented Patricia Martínez-Garzón, a seismologist at GFZ Potsdam. The tremor was ultimately caused by the Arabian and Anatolian plates "sliding horizontally past each other" along the East Anatolia fault zone.
The quake was so deadly due to a number of factors, the Post explains. First, the earthquake was extremely large and spanned a wide geographic area. It also occurred close to the surface and impacted a number of major cities in the area, including Istanbul, where the population is high.
"In the southeastern part of Turkey, they hadn't felt a strong earthquake in most people's lifetimes," said Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at University College London.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Devika Rao has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022, covering science, the environment, climate and business. She previously worked as a policy associate for a nonprofit organization advocating for environmental action from a business perspective.
-
The lesser-known Elsinore fault is a risk to California
The Explainer A powerful earthquake could be on the horizon
By Devika Rao, The Week US
-
Scientists find hint of alien life on distant world
Speed Read NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has detected a possible signature of life on planet K2-18b
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Katy Perry, Gayle King visit space on Bezos rocket
Speed Read Six well-known women went into lower orbit for 11 minutes
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Scientists map miles of wiring in mouse brain
Speed Read Researchers have created the 'largest and most detailed wiring diagram of a mammalian brain to date,' said Nature
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Scientists genetically revive extinct 'dire wolves'
Speed Read A 'de-extinction' company has revived the species made popular by HBO's 'Game of Thrones'
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Dark energy may not doom the universe, data suggests
Speed Read The dark energy pushing the universe apart appears to be weakening
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Pharaoh's tomb discovered for first time in 100 years
Speed Read This is the first burial chamber of a pharaoh unearthed since Tutankhamun in 1922
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Scientists report optimal method to boil an egg
Speed Read It takes two temperatures of water to achieve and no fancy gadgets
By Peter Weber, The Week US