Earthquakes in Turkey

Turkey is crossed by two of the most dangerous fault systems in the world, the North Anatolian and the East Anatolian faults. As the Arabian plate presses north into Eurasia, the Anatolian plate is squeezed westward toward the Aegean, and these strike-slip faults accommodate that motion with sudden, often catastrophic ruptures.

The North Anatolian Fault runs east to west across northern Turkey close to Istanbul and the industrial heartland, while the East Anatolian Fault threatens the southeast. The 1999 Izmit earthquake and the devastating 2023 magnitude 7.8 event near Kahramanmaras, which killed tens of thousands, show why building resilience remains an urgent national priority. Both disasters exposed widespread non-compliance with Turkey's seismic building codes, prompting tighter inspection rules and renewed debate over retrofitting older housing stock in earthquake-prone provinces.