Twin Earthquakes Devastate Southern Turkey and Northern Syria

In the early morning hours of 6 February 2023, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, centered west of Gaziantep. Approximately nine hours later, a second major tremor, measured at magnitude 7.5 by the United States Geological Survey and 7.6 by Turkish authorities, struck farther north near Elbistan in Kahramanmaraş Province. According to a Turkish government assessment, destruction spread across about 110,000 square kilometers, affecting eleven Turkish provinces alongside extensive sections of northwestern Syria.

The disaster stemmed from shallow strike-slip movements where the Arabian plate pushes northward against the Anatolian plate and the African plate. Initial rupture began on the Narlı fault, a splay of the system, before spreading in both directions along the East Anatolian Fault, including the Pazarcık, Amanos, and Erkenek segments. Satellite and ground surveys traced about 300 kilometers of rupture from the first event and roughly 100 kilometers or more along the Çardak fault from the afternoon shock, with ground offsets that reached roughly nine to ten meters.