
It was around half past 11 in the morning and I was just about ready to get out, sitting on my bed in the back of my apartment, when I felt it.
That slight rolling and rocking, what you first mistake for a heavy truck passing outside…
Just that there is no street outside and no truck would ever pass through that road.
I have lived though a couple of heavier, clearly recognizable quakes in California, and through a big one in the night in Bologna in 2012, that woke the city up, and killed a number of people… since then, I am weary of them.
Today, it lasted maybe five seconds, and just when I was about to look for a solid door frame, it stopped. It was an earthquake in the Aegean Sea, a few hundred kilometers from here, but was felt in Istanbul, and as far as Athens.
It’s fascinating, as long as it’s just a gentle rocking. That jolt in Bologna that hit my bed pretty hard was another caliber.
I realize that on this trip, I am visiting a number of earthquake zones: Chile, New Zealand, Tokyo, Istanbul, so far. San Francisco, Mexico City and China still on the list.
I do look for safe places in an apartment, but being in the basement here it not necessarily a comforting thought, with the whole house above me.
Turkey has been hit by earthquakes since men can think, and the city has been devastated a number of times in it’s history, notably in 557 and 1509.
The Arabian plate is pushing north, and is causing the Anatolian plate to move west, by 2,5 cm a year. Unfortunately, the African plate is also moving north, so Turkey is basically permeated with fault lines.
In 1999, the last earthquake in the Sea of Marmara cost thousands of lives.
What is more worrying though is that a number of big earthquakes have moved along the fault line, closer and closer to Istanbul. The city is just waiting for the big one.
Waiting seems to be the precise word, as most of the city is simply not prepared at all to what is about to come.
The old wooden houses might actually withstand it best, but a lot the stone and concrete buildings are likely to collapse.
A majority of buildings are old and have been built either without authorization, or without the proper earthquake reinforcements. It’s a disaster with announcement, waiting to happen.