Could the devastation have been minimised?
Dear Editor,
Monday’s 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes in the region of Turkey and Syria have created a hellscape.
A tear or two, and even more tears, must be shed for the thousands of people in Turkey and Syria whose lives have been lost and the towns and cities which are now laid waste from this doomsday earthquake.
But while we are shedding a tear or two, let’s not forget that material help for the victims has to supplement or replace tears.
So this is nature. It all too often causes human havoc and misery. However, the tragedy in Turkey and Syria is even more compounded by the incessant wars that have raged in that region over the last few decades.
But even as we sympathise and grieve with the people of these countries, whose possessions have been ruined by both nature and wars, we have to ask the question: Why were they not better prepared for it?
Better preparation would have included well-constructed buildings. So, for instance, the building of shoddily constructed massive tower blocks would not have been allowed and the use of earthquake-resistant building materials and practices would have been a requirement.
Planners in these earthquake-prone zones should have known that:
1. The Arabian Peninsula is part of a tectonic plate that is making its way north into the Eurasian Plate and the entire country of Turkey is being squeezed between these plates.
2. Tectonic shifts have been the underlying cause of earthquakes in this area for thousands of years, including the one that flattened the Syrian city of Aleppo in 1138. More recent quakes, such as the one that struck the city of Izmit in 1999, have killed thousands.
The current earthquakes occurred because “two pieces of the earth are sliding horizontally past each other,” scientists reveal. So, in the case of the Turkey and Syria earthquakes, these were caused by the Arabian Plate sliding past the Anatolian Plate.
But, as usual, humans tend to be reactive and not proactive. So, again, Turkey, Syria, and the rest of the world are left to clean up the mess, much of it avoidable if leaders in those regions hadn’t turned a blind eye and hoped that such an event would not happen. Well, at least, not happen in their lifetime, but it has.
So this monumental tragedy should be a wake-up call to all humans who choose to live precariously by underestimating the forces of nature.
George Garwood
merleneg@yahoo.com