Bolstering Codes, Inspections Key to Surviving Earthquakes

When you live in an earthquake zone, earthquakes are inevitable, so be prepared.

If you are the leader of a country in an earthquake zone, institute and enforce building codes that will protect your citizens from those inevitable earthquakes.

Not to do so is, plain and simple, political malpractice.

In California there are codes and inspections. They are essential. They save lives. In Israel there are codes and inspections. When people, builders, contractors, engineers, violate the building codes and cut corners — people die.

Certainly, those responsible are held accountable, but that doesn’t bring back the dead.

Building responsibly does not mean that the earthquake won’t result in destruction, it does not mean that people won’t die, but it does mean that the numbers of dead and the amount of damage sustained will be significantly reduced.

In the end, these measures save money. And they save lives. To think otherwise, certainly to act otherwise, is truly to be penny wise and dime foolish.

Turkey and Syria should have known better.

Everyone — and I mean everyone — who lives in the region knowns that they live in an earthquake zone.

And not just any earthquake zone. Theirs is the largest seismological rift in the world. It runs nearly 4,500 miles — that is twice the distance from Manhattan to LA. The rift is, for good reason, known as the Great Rift. It is also called the Syrian African Rift. To call it a rift, however, is a misnomer.

It is actually a rift system composed of several joining rifts and faults. The rift starts in Southeast Africa, in Mozambique, and goes all the way to Turkey. It runs under the Red Sea which explains why Egypt is subject to so very many earthquakes.

A rift is created when there is a dip in the earth. A fault is a break in the surface of the earth.

In fact, the Dead Sea was created by the formation of this rift.

The Syrian African Rift is huge. The walls along the crack in the earth rise as high as 6,600 feet. The rift created Lake Tanganyika, the world’s longest lake. Lake Tanganyika is 420 miles long. It is the world’s second deepest lake at 4,708 feet. By comparison, the world’s largest freshwater lake is Lake Superior and it is only 1,312 feet deep.

That’s a difference of 3,396 feet.

The dimensions of the rift that also runs through Turkey and Syria are astounding. The Dead Sea sits in the rift. It is the lowest point on earth for that very reason. The earth opened and this rift was created.

The Dead Sea is 1,310 feet below sea level — about 1,300 feet deep. That makes the distance from the bottom of the sea, to sea level, about 2,600 feet.

The Great Rift is composed of several rifts that intersect. These breaks in the earth create wonderous natural habitats like rivers and lakes and hot springs and geysers and even volcanoes.

It is shifts inside the earth, in this region, that create earthquakes.

Tectonic plates move apart and then, when they need to settle into place, a quake occurs. Aftershocks, which are sometimes greater than the original quake, can continue for weeks. That is the earth settling again, getting back to a new normal.

This movement is significant. On one side of the Great Rift the earth is moving northward. On the other side of the valley, the earth is sinking.

Quakes have been around since biblical times. The psalmist writes of “mountains skipping like rams and hills like lambs.” This is a beautiful description of an earthquake.

The Prophet Amos, in the 8^th century BCE, dates events from the time of “the earthquake.” This makes sense. Everyone would remember the great earthquake. Its devastation lasts for generations.

A huge earthquake is a perfect benchmark for dating events. And this, the earthquake of 2023 was huge.

But it is important to note that earthquakes in this region are so common that as of this writing, in the past 24 hours, three earthquakes have erupted. 53 in the past week. 320 in the past month. Most are small, most are barely unnoticed, most do not get media coverage, most do not cause destruction and death.

This recent, giant, 7.8 magnitude quake, will be there to remind us for many years of the huge destructive powers that earthquakes command.

But it doesn’t have to be this destructive, this deadly.

Erzin is a town located just next to the epicenter of the quake that devastated Turkey. The mayor of this Turkish town insisted that all buildings be built to sustain a quake. And in this devastating quake, not a single building collapsed and not a single person died. Why Did a Turkish City Withstand the Earthquake When Others Crumbled? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Let that be a lesson to all.