How are earthquakes measured and how massive is the Turkey-Syria quake?

News Network
February 6, 2023

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Early Monday morning (February 6), an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck south-central Turkey and Northwest Syria, reported AP. Buildings across the region were seen tumbling down, sparking a mad scramble to find survivors in the rubble and amidst an ongoing snow storm in many places.

Early reports have put the number of fatalities over 600 with thousands injured, reported AP. This event is likely to be a humanitarian catastrophe in a region already ravaged with over a decade-long civil unrest and a refugee crisis.

The magnitude of the quake

Many survivors have claimed that this is the strongest quake they have felt in their lives. “I have never felt anything like it in the 40 years I’ve lived”, Erdem, a resident of the Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the quake’s epicentre, told Reuters. Videos of buildings being razed to dust have been circulating on social media.

A magnitude of 7.8 on the Moment Magnitude scale is indeed really strong. According to experts, the quake is the joint largest on record (since roughly 1900) in Turkey. It has the same magnitude as one that killed about 30,000 people in December 1939 in northeast Turkey, tweeted Stephan Hicks, a researcher in seismology at the Imperial College London.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake was centred about 33 km from Gaziantep, around 18 km deep, reported AP. This is a highly populous region, exponentially increasing the likelihood of casualties. The effects of the quake were felt across West Asia, Northern Africa and South Eastern Europe with residents of Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece, Israel and Egypt also reporting tremors, wrote The Guardian.

Measuring a quake’s magnitude

The earth’s crust is broken up into tectonic plates that are constantly moving, slowly, often getting stuck at their edges due to friction. When the stress on the edge overcomes the friction, there is an earthquake that releases energy in waves that travel through the earth’s crust, resulting in the vibration felt.

A network of seismographs are used to record earthquakes with each individual seismograph recording and measuring the movement of the ground in its location. A seismograph is securely mounted onto the surface of the earth so that when the earth shakes, the entire unit shakes with the exception of the mass on the spring, which remains in its place because of inertia.

During shaking, the recording device on this mass records the relative motion between itself and the rest of the instrument, thus recording the ground motion. According to the USGS, these mechanisms are no longer manual, but instead work by measuring electronic changes produced by the motion of the ground with respect to the mass. 

Measuring the intensity

In many ways, the intensity is an even more important measure of an earthquake as it is related to the tangible impact a quake has. Intensity scales, like the Modified Mercalli Scale and the Rossi-Forel scale, measure the amount of shaking at a particular location.

An earthquake causes many different intensities of shaking, depending on how deep it is located on the earth’s crust and how far it is from its epicentre. Earthquakes of lower magnitude can be more intense if they are located in more shallow ground or if the area where they occur has more loose soil, etc.

The Modified Mercalli Scale, the most commonly used intensity scale, ranks earthquake intensity on a scale of I. (not felt) to XII. (extreme). The maximum intensity measured in today’s Turkey earthquake is IX. or violent – “Damage is considerable in specially designed structures; Damage is great in substantial buildings, with partial collapse. Buildings are shifted off foundations. Liquefaction occurs. Underground pipes are broken”, according to the USGS website.

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News Network
March 14,2024

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The high-level committee on simultaneous elections, chaired by Ram Nath Kovind, on Thursday met President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan and submitted its report on 'One Nation, One Election'. The report comprises 18,626 pages.

Home Minister Amit Shah was also present at Rashtrapati Bhawan when Kovind led panel submitted the report.

"Simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and state assemblies can be held in first step, followed by local body polls within 100 days in second step," reported PTI quoting the panel.

"Synchronised polls for all three tiers of government to improve governance architecture, in line with quest of aspirational India," it added.

The report has been submitted 191 days after the constitution of the panel on September 2, 2023.

It's further reported that the proposal also puts focus on having a singular electoral roll for holding Lok Sabha, state assembly and local body polls.

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News Network
March 27,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 27: The government has objected strongly to remarks by a US State Department spokesperson on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's arrest last week in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam.

The External Affairs Ministry summoned Gloria Berbena, the US' Acting Deputy Chief of Mission, to a 40-minute meet at its office in Delhi on Wednesday afternoon. In a brief statement released shortly afterwards, the MEA warned of "unhealthy precedents and against "unwarranted aspersions".

"States are expected to be respectful of the sovereignty and internal affairs of others, and this responsibility is even more so in case of fellow democracies. It could otherwise end up setting unhealthy precedents," the External Affairs Ministry said.

"India's legal processes are based on an independent judiciary which is committed to objective and timely outcomes. Casting aspersions on that is unwarranted," the statement stressed.

On Tuesday the US State Department said it is monitoring reports of Mr Kejriwal's arrest, and called on New Delhi to ensure "a fair and timely legal process" for the jailed Aam Aadmi Party leader.

The US State Department's comments came, in turn, days after Germany's Foreign Office stressed that Mr Kejriwal, like any other Indian citizen facing charges, is entitled to a fair and impartial trial.

The Indian government reacted strongly to the comment, summoning the German envoy and labelling the Foreign Office spokesperson's remark "blatant interference in internal matters".

"We see such remarks as interfering in our judicial process and undermining the independence of our judiciary," the External Affairs Ministry said, "Biased assumptions are most unwarranted."

Asked about India's protest to Germany, the State Department spokesperson told Reuters, "We refer you to the German Foreign Ministry for comment on their discussions with the Indian government."

Earlier this month the Modi government also took exception to comments by its counterpart on the changes to the citizenship law, calling them out as "misplaced, misinformed, and unwarranted".

Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate last week in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam that has roiled his AAP and provoked furious protests from the opposition ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Mr Kejriwal was this week sent to jail till March 28.

The Enforcement Directorate believes the now-scrapped liquor policy provided an impossibly high profit margin of 185 per cent for retailers and 12 per cent for wholesalers. Of the latter, six per cent - over ₹ 600 crore - were bribes and the money was allegedly used to fund the AAP's poll campaigns.

The ED has labelled the Chief Minister as a key conspirator in this case, but Mr Kejriwal and party colleagues arrested in this matter - ex-Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, and former Health Minister Satyendar Jain - have all denied the charges.

The AAP and the opposition have hit out at the BJP-led central government for using central agencies, like the ED, to target rivals and critics before the general election. The AAP has criticised Mr Kejriwal's arrest on grounds it was timed to interfere with his plans to campaign for the party.

The BJP has dismissed claims it uses central agencies as described by the opposition.

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News Network
March 16,2024

Mangaluru: In the wake of complaints regarding middlemen menace, sleuths of Lokayukta on Friday, March 15, conducted a raid at the Mangaluru Urban Development Authority. 

The Lokayukta team found unaccounted money and several files, which were not disposed of for a long period.

Lokayukta SP CA Simon said that the Lokayukta has received complaints that middlemen have been interfering in the MUDA office, and files pertaining to the public are not being cleared on time.

A raid that commenced in the evening on March 13, lasted for 18 hours. During the raid, Lokayukta officials found cash in a bag in MUDA office, and also with officials and others. MUDA officials could not inform the source of money found in their office, the SP said.

Further, he said that many people gathered at the MUDA office during the Lokayukta raid, and have raised complaints about the harassment at the urban development authority. “We have gathered evidence for MUDA officials carrying out file disposal processes through brokers on phone calls. The investigation on the MUDA network will be continued,” he said.

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