Following the Hatay earthquake in southern Turkey, a massive fault was formed. It measured about 30 meters deep and roughly 200 meters wide, cutting through an olive field in a local village. A drone captured the fault, according to a report from a Turkish newspaper.
Residents recalled a loud boom during the quake, likely the sound of the earth shifting beneath the surface. Several observers described witnessing a green glow or green smoke along part of the fault. The feature appeared in a 35-hectare olive grove at the center of Tepehan village. An eyewitness noted that the field was perfectly flat before the event.
Comparable to the explosion of 500 nuclear bombs
What happened in southeast Turkey drew comparisons to a nuclear-scale blast. Orhan Tatar, head of risk minimization at the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, described the first earthquake as lasting 65 seconds with devastating effects. The second quake was similarly damaging, lasting about 45 seconds, and the ground shook violently for around two minutes. He explained that an energy release equivalent to 500 atomic bombs would match the intensity of a 7.7 magnitude event.
Carlo Doglioni, head of Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, stated that the Arabian Plate was involved in the Turkey quake. He added that the Anatolian plate likely shifted about 3 meters from northeast to southwest. The 3-meter offset is an early estimate, he told Corriere della Sera. The scientist also noted that Turkey’s relationship with Syria has changed as a result.
Doglioni suggested that predicting when aftershocks will end is not currently possible because the energy remains in the system until it is released. By conservative estimates, at least 150 kilometers of the fault experienced movement of 3 meters or more, effectively signaling a southwest shift of Turkey relative to the Arabian plate, he explained.
Experts cautioned against attributing the Turkish quake to human activity. Ruben Tatevosyan, deputy director of engineering seismology and seismic hazard assessment at IPE RAS, remarked that conspiracy theories often arise around strong events. He noted that long-standing tension on the plates was visible more than a decade ago in a highly active region, making such earthquakes expected even if not precisely predictable. The area has long been known for its seismic activity, making a quake of this scale a foreseeable risk rather than a mysterious occurrence.
The earthquake occurred within the East Anatolian fault system, where five tectonic plates converge. Researchers have long warned that seismic activity would eventually unfold in this zone, given the plate interactions at the convergence point.
There was a comparison drawn to hypothetical situations where a disturbance on the North American Plate might lead to speculation about human causes. Experts stressed that there is no geological basis for such theories. While past events like Neftegorsk and Gazli demonstrated surprises in earthquake history, those cases were linked to deeply studied faults that had not received sufficient attention. In short, the protracted fault interactions in this region align with established geophysical understanding rather than intentional triggering, according to Tatevosyan.
On the night of February 6, a sequence of strong earthquakes occurred near the Turkish Syrian border, including two large shocks of magnitudes 7.7 and 7.6, followed by many weaker tremors. The latest figures show more than 21,000 deaths in Turkey and tens of thousands of injuries and damage. More than 6,000 buildings were destroyed. In Syria, the death toll reached over 3,500, with thousands reported injured and large-scale devastation across both government and contested areas. These numbers reflect the widespread humanitarian impact of the quake and its aftershocks across the region, as health authorities reported the casualties and the scale of destruction.