After the powerful Turkish earthquake of magnitude 7.8, long cracks appeared. Not just one, but there are two and are monitored by satellite.
Scientists from the Center for the Observation & Modeling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes & Tectonics (COMET) in England discovered the cracks photographed by the Sentinel-1 satellite. The first crack is 300 km long from the northeastern side of the Mediterranean Sea to the northeast.
These first cracks appeared after the first M 7.8 earthquake. Meanwhile, the second crack is 125 km long due to the shaking of the second M 7.5 earthquake.
"This earthquake rift is one of the longest ever recorded on this continent. In addition, it is highly unusual for 2 large earthquakes to occur within hours of each other," Professor Tim Wright, lead researcher of the COMET team, told Space. com as reported, Monday (13/2/2023).
The movement of the tectonic plates that caused the earthquake caused large rifts that could be clearly seen by the eye. These cracks cut through the city and even penetrated the buildings.
"We estimate that this horizontal shift is up to 5 meters. This large shift on land must be visible to people living there," said researcher from COMET, Milan Lazecky.
Photos from the Sentinel-1 Satellite are corroborated by photos of cracks in Turkey that people are sharing on Twitter, for example the account @geodesist_a. In a photo, it appears that the road markings that were straight have shifted far.
The earthquake area of Turkey is the meeting point of the Anatolian, Arabian and African plates. When they collided, the impact was an enormous amount of pressure. As of Monday (13/2) the number of victims of the earthquake in Turkey had reached 34,179 people.
