The 1999 Düzce earthquake occurred on 12 November at with a moment magnitude of 7.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent''), causing damage and at least 845 fatalities in

Düzce Düzce is the capital city of Düzce Province, the eighty-first Province in Turkey. The population is 367,087 and in 2009 was 125,240, an increase from 61,878 in 1990. Overview Düzce is the eighty-first and the newest province of Turk ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. 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 ...

was approximately to the east of the extremely destructive

1999 İzmit earthquake On the 17th of August, 1999 at 3:01 AM local time, a catastrophic magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the Kocaeli Province of Turkey, causing monumental damage and 17,127–18,373 deaths. Named for the quakes proximity to the northeastern city of I ...

that happened a few months earlier. Both

strike-slip In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tecton ...

earthquakes were caused by movement on the

North Anatolian Fault The North Anatolian Fault (NAF) ( tr, Kuzey Anadolu Fay Hattı) is an active right-lateral strike-slip fault in northern Anatolia, and is the transform boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Plate. The fault extends westward fro ...

Tectonic setting

The western and central parts of Turkey lie on the eastern part of the Anatolian Plate, which is currently being forced to the west by the continuing northward movement of the

Arabian Plate The Arabian Plate is a minor tectonic plate in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres. It is one of the three continental plates (along with the African and the Indian Plates) that have been moving northward in geological history and collidi ...

. In northern Turkey, this westward motion is taken up by a major zone of dextral (right-lateral) strike-slip, the North Anatolian Fault. The 1999 Düzce event is the most recent in a sequence of large earthquakes that have affected the North Anatolian Fault, starting towards the eastern end with the

1939 Erzincan earthquake The 1939 Erzincan earthquake struck eastern Turkey at with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XII (''Extreme''). It was the second most powerful earthquake recorded in Turkey, after the 1668 North Anatolia earthquake ...

, then propagating towards the west with events in

1942 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in wh ...

1943 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured. * January 4 – ...

1944 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 2 – WWII: ** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in No ...

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...

1957 1957 (Roman numerals, MCMLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday, common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, t ...

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establ ...

and finally the 1999 İzmit event. At its western end the North Anatolian Fault splits into two main segments, with the northern of these giving rise to the 1999 earthquakes.

Earthquake

The earthquake had an estimated magnitude in the range 7.1–7.2 on the moment magnitude scale. The

International Seismological Centre The International Seismological Centre (ISC) is a non-governmental, nonprofit organisation charged with the final collection, definitive analysis and publication of global seismicity. The ISC was formed in 1964 as an international organisation ...

gives a magnitude of 7.16±0.1 for this event in their catalogue. The maximum measured intensity was IX at a seismometer about 4 km from the epicentre, with a peak ground acceleration of 147.80%g and a peak ground velocity of 113.02 cm/sec.

Ground rupture

surface rupture In seismology, surface rupture (or ground rupture, or ground displacement) is the visible offset of the ground surface when an earthquake rupture along a fault affects the Earth's surface. Surface rupture is opposed by buried rupture, where th ...

of 40 km was identified in the field along the Düzce Fault, part of the northern splay of the North Anatolian Fault. This was extended by an additional 15 km at the eastern end using SPOT imagery. The maximum identified lateral displacement was 5 m, with an average displacement of 3 m. At the western end of the fault, there was a maximum 3.5 m of vertical displacement.

Rupture propagation

Analysis of

seismometer A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground noises and shaking such as caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The outp ...

records suggests that the rupture propagated towards the east faster than the

S-wave __NOTOC__ In seismology and other areas involving elastic waves, S waves, secondary waves, or shear waves (sometimes called elastic S waves) are a type of elastic wave and are one of the two main types of elastic body waves, so named because t ...

velocity ( supershear) and to the west slower than the S-wave velocity. Supershear rupture propagation is characteristic of strike-slip earthquakes, particularly on fault segments that are relatively simple and planar in geometry.

Damage

Düzce and surrounding areas had already been quite badly affected by the İzmit earthquake a few months earlier, so that many buildings were already in a weakened state when the November earthquake struck. The number of fatalities in Düzce is recorded as 478, with an additional 313 in the town of Kaynaşlı and 48 in the city of

Bolu Bolu is a city in Turkey, and administrative center of the Bolu Province. The population is 131,264 (2012 census). The city has been governed by mayor Tanju Özcan ( CHP) since local elections in 2019. It was the site of Ancient Claudiopolis an ...

. A significant number of deaths were attributed to the presence of traditional heaters causing fires and related smoke effects, particularly in Kaynaşlı.

Relief efforts

Disaster_and_Emergency_Management_Presidency

Following criticism of their response to the İzmit earthquake, the Turkish government reacted quickly to the November earthquake, with rapid deployment of military personnel, police and medical teams to the area. Field hospitals were provided by teams from Russia, Japan, Egypt and Israel. Search and rescue teams were sent from many countries including Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Israel, United Kingdom, United States, Greece, Germany, Russia, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Algeria, Sweden and Switzerland. An estimated 2,000 rescuers were present, including 150 search dogs. Many of those made homeless by the earthquake were temporarily placed in encampments, but this was problematic as the weather was generally wet and temperatures at night were at or near freezing and many of the tents were not "winterized". A year after the earthquake, about 7,500 people were still living in tents with about 30,000 accommodated in prefabricated houses.

Gallery

File:After Earthquake-Düzce Çoban Restoran - panoramio.jpg

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Duzce 1999 1999 Düzce 1999 earthquakes 1999 in Turkey History of Düzce Supershear earthquakes November 1999 events in Turkey Strike-slip earthquakes 1999 disasters in Turkey