Turkey+(Izmit)+1999

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__**Turkey (Izmit) 1999**__
__ Section 1 - The Earthquake __ ========

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 * The 1999 earthquake in Turkey occured in the town of Izmit. Izmit is the administrative town of the Kocaeli province and has a population of approximately 250 thousand. The earthquake happened on the 17th of August at 3a.m local time. The epicentre was located at 41.81ºN and 30.08ºE, at a shallow depth of around 10 to 16 km. It lasted approximately 37 seconds. **=====

 Turkey is located on Eurasia n Plat e, on its border with the Arabian and African Plates. It is located on a section of the plate called the Anatolian Plate. There are two faults running through Turkey; the North Anatolian and East Anatolian faults. This crack was caused by the pressure of the Arabian and African plates pushing towards the  Eurasian plate. The earthquake occurred on the North  Anatolian Fault.

__**Section 2 - What caused the Earthquake?**__

The earthquake occurred due to a slip in the North Anatolian Plate. As the African and Arabian plates push up on to the Eurasian plate, this causes the Anatolian plate westward, resultimg in faulting. As the pressure builds, it must finally be released, resulting in a slip and an earthquake. The fault slipped up to 5 metres at places and caused about 110km of surface rupture.

The richter scale reading for the earthquake was estimated at 7.8. This doesn't describe the extent of the damage done, only the amount of energy released and the amount of ground movement. The amount of energy released by the earthquake is equal to that released when about 180 megatonnes of TNT are exploded.

The mercalli scale reading of the earthquake was 9. This reading is in rellation to the amount of damage caused by the earthquake. A reading of 9 is classified as being ruinous with considerable dmage to speciallly designed structures and a lot of damage to bigger buldings with partial collapse. Buildings may also shifted from their foundations.

There were many hazzards assosciate with the earthquake. fied into primary and secondary hazzards. The primary hazzards are those directly caused by the release of energy; the movement of the ground. During the earthquake, the ground shook for about 37 seconds. This weakened the foundations of the houses resulting in a lot of colapsed buildings, especially during the aftershocks.

One of the secondary hazards assosciated with the earthquake was liquefaction. Liquefaction is when solid ground is changes state into a heavy liquid. It happens in soils where the spaces between the particles is filled with water. During an earthquake the water pressure can increase, allowing the particles to move like a liquid. This reduces the strength of the soil, which in turn reduces its ability to support foundations, causing buildings to collapse. The earthquake also caused a tidal wave in Izmit Bay.

__Section 3 - The Impacts__

Social: The earthquake caused a lot of short-term social impacts. Due to the large amount of collapsed housing, about 250,000 people were displaced, which lead to the spread of diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentry. Because of the large amount of fatalities, ice rinks and refrigerated lorries had to be used as mortuaries. As well as this, official buildings, such as an army barracks, collapsed. Althou gh the official death toll was 17,127, many sources suggest that it was actually closer to 40,000.

[[image:http://www.calpoly.edu/%7Esalpteki/Personal/Earthquake/slide0009_image070.jpg width="288" height="190" align="right" caption="The oil refinery on fire"]]
====**Environmental: The earthquake caused the collapse of an oil refinery which resulted in a fire that took days ****to get under control. There were also oil leaks into the water supply. The bay also saw a rise in toxic gases as well as a 15 year low in dissolved oxygen an chlorophyll levels. The earthquake also created two tidal waves which travelled across the Izmit Bay. Electricity and water supplies were interrupted. **====

[[image:http://www.stgeorg-hilfe.de/images/4_zugschienen.jpg align="left" caption="Damaged railway"]]
====**Economic: The UN estimated the economic impact of the earthquake at 25 billion USD, whereas the World bank estimated it at only 6.5billion. Large residential areas had to be re-built as well as industrial. The largest oil refinery was damaged, resulting in a loss of income. Roads and Railways were damaged, needing repair. **====

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**<span style="font-size: 110%; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Section 4 - Evaluation__ **
==== **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The main impact of the earthquake was the collapse of buildings. Although Turkey suffers from regular earthquakes and previous advice had been given on what tipe of structures to build, the collapse of the buildings was blamed on poor structures. Turkey has a law which calls on all buildibgs to be built earthquake proof, there are doubts as to weather these laws are being followed. Proper buldings could have spared thousands of lives as the primary cause of mortality was collapse of residential areas. ** ==== ==== **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A study done in 1997 calculated a 12% chance of an earthquake in the region in the next 30 years. The careful monitoring of the region could save a lot of lives in the future. ** ====