The 1975 Lice earthquake struck the Turkish district of

Lice Louse ( : lice) is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been recognized as an order, infraorder, or a parvorder, as a result o ...

at 12:20 local time (09:20 UTC) on 6 September. The

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

of the 6.7 shock was located near the town of Lice and the maximum felt intensity was VIII (''Severe'') on the

Mercalli intensity scale The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

. More than 2,300 people were killed.

Tectonic setting

The tectonics of Turkey are dominated by the effects of the continuing collision between the

African Plate The African Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes much of the continent of Africa (except for its easternmost part) and the adjacent oceanic crust to the west and south. It is bounded by the North American Plate and South American Plat ...

and the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

. The main result of this collision is the southwestward escape of the

Anatolian Plate The Anatolian Plate is a continental tectonic plate comprising most of the Anatolia (Asia Minor) peninsula (and the country of Turkey). To the east, the East Anatolian Fault, a left lateral transform fault, forms a boundary with the Arabian Pla ...

by displacement along the North Anatolian and

East Anatolian Fault The East Anatolian Fault ( tr, Doğu Anadolu Fay Hattı) is a major strike-slip fault zone in eastern Turkey. It forms the transform type tectonic boundary between the Anatolian Plate and the northward-moving Arabian Plate. The difference in th ...

s. To the east of these faults, the plate boundary is a zone of orthogonal collision, with the relative displacement spread out over a wide zone, continuing as far north as the

Greater Caucasus The Greater Caucasus ( az, Böyük Qafqaz, Бөјүк Гафгаз, بيوک قافقاز; ka, დიდი კავკასიონი, ''Didi K’avk’asioni''; russian: Большой Кавказ, ''Bolshoy Kavkaz'', sometimes translat ...

. The largest fault within the plate boundary zone is the west-east trending Bitlis frontal thrust and the 1975 earthquake is thought to have been caused by movement on this structure.

Damage

The main area of damage was located near the towns of Hani, Lice and Kulp. In Lice 12 out of the 13

mahalle is an Arabic word variously translated as district, quarter, ward, or " neighborhood" in many parts of the Arab world, the Balkans, Western Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and nearby nations. History Historically, mahallas were autonomous social in ...

s (sections) of the town were completely destroyed. 6 schools, 6 mosques and 132 commercial buildings were damaged. In the 188 villages surrounding Lice that were affected, 5,555 houses suffered either severe damage or total destruction.

Characteristics

The earthquake occurred near midday without any warning. The shaking continued for about 20–24 seconds. The mainshock was followed by

aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in the same area of the main shock, caused as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthquakes can have hundreds to thousand ...

s that continued for more than a month. The

focal mechanism The focal mechanism of an earthquake describes the deformation in the source region that generates the seismic waves. In the case of a fault-related event it refers to the orientation of the fault plane that slipped and the slip vector and is ...

for the earthquake suggests that it was associated with dominantly reverse movement on a fault plane dipping at 45° to the northwest with a significant sinistral (left lateral) component.

Response

National

A total of 15,000 Turkish soldiers were involved in rescue and relief work, with the first personnel arriving just 3 hours after the earthquake. The government set aside a total of 34 million dollars for repair and reconstruction.

International

Financial assistance from the international community, from both government and private sources reached a total of $14,837,058. The largest government contribution was from

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. Aid in the form of food and some other supplies from foreign agencies were treated with suspicion with much unfamiliar tinned food being sold for animal feed.

Aftermath

Just 5 days after the earthquake, following a geological site investigation of suitable sites, the decision was made to relocate the town about south of its previous position. By 29 October 1975, 1,568 houses, 40 shops, a school, a mosque and a bakery were complete.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lice 1975 1975 in Turkey 1975 Lice 1975 earthquakes History of Diyarbakır Province September 1975 events in Europe 1975 disasters in Turkey