A brief overview of Turkiye Earthquake: insight into the building damage

TL;DR

This paper reviews the 2023 Turkiye earthquake, detailing seismicity, ground effects, building damages, and suggests strategies like base isolation and stricter building code enforcement to enhance earthquake resilience.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the seismic event, damage assessment, and proposes specific mitigation strategies to improve future earthquake resilience in Turkiye.

Findings

Significant liquefaction and ground subsidence observed

High building collapse rates due to construction lacunae

Recommendations for base isolation and strict code enforcement

Abstract

The month of February 2023 had been a nightmare for the people of Turkiye. On 6th Feb, there was a devastating earthquake which jolted Turkiye like never before. The aftershock which followed later added more fuel to the overall damages. Till now, there has been reports several aftershocks which is believed to continue for another considerable span of time. In terms of damage, the loss was totally irreparable. Millions of people were rendered homeless, and a large chunk of population had lost their lives due to building collapse. This mini communication overviews the past seismicity of Turkiye. As per preliminary report, there has been substantial liquefaction and ground subsidence in and around the epicenters. Accordingly, the liquefaction is also briefly detailed along with types of prevalent sediments Further, the damages as well as building collapsed are detailed here along with probable causes as well as lacunae observed in building construction. Future strategies may possibly involve such as base isolation or isolators can be introduced in order to make the buildings more resilient earthquakes. However, strict monitoring and compliance of structures to building code should be implemented with strict measures. Any violation of such codes should be penalized. All these measures can lead to earthquake resilient society.