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Everything you need to know about Earthquakes

On Monday, February 6, a series of catastrophic earthquakes struck Turkey. On Tuesday, there were more than 5000 fatalities, in addition to a large number of injuries and displaced people.

Due to its location near the confluence of the Eurasian, Arabian, and African tectonic plates, Turkey is recognised to be earthquake-prone. Turkey has already experienced seismic activity; in fact, the country itself registered around 33,000 little quakes in the area in 2020.

One of the major causes of an earthquake is a slip along a fault, which is a junction between two tectonic plates. Such earthquakes are called inter-plate earthquakes. Another cause is the movement of tectonic plates; such earthquakes are called an intra-plate earthquakes.

Earthquakes are recorded using an instrument called a seismograph and the recording that they make is called a seismogram. The seismograph has a base that sets firmly on the ground and a heavy weight that hangs free.

It is common to associate the severity of an earthquake with its size, or magnitude. A more accurate indicator of damage, however, is the earthquake’s intensity at each location rather than its magnitude, which is measured at the source.

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