Academics from all relevant scientific disciplines knew and warned. They were tired of repeating. When someone said, “There will be an earthquake here,” they would scorn them, “everyone knows.”
The earthquake happened. But they were stunned.
On Jan. 8, I touched briefly on their surprise. Let us recall them and intensify the astonishment.
What we comprehend is where the “astonishment” will spread. Then, we might start to find it “strange.” That is how “doubt” comes.
There is a connection between understanding the strength/impact of this earthquake and the start of doubt. That is the first stage of reaching the “elephant in the room.” Consider this when reading.
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National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) President Carlo Doglioni said, “The Arabian plate has moved about 3 meters in a northeast-southwest direction regarding the Anatolian plate. Everything happened in 30-40 seconds. It is like Turkey moved.”
Doglioni is important. He encouraged that initial “awareness” amid the chaos. In journalism terms, his statement means, “Türkiye moved 3 meters.” That is how we reported it. Following this, readings regarding the “truth of the metaphor” increased.
In my previous column, I cited Scientist Prof. Övgün Ahmet Ercan saying, “Something extraordinary is happening. No such earthquake of this kind as been seen on the face of the earth.”
In the same column, I also mentioned Japanese seismologist Yoshinori Moriwaki statement, “The intensity of earthquakes in Turkey in the last three years are increasing.”
Let’s continue.
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Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the Canadian University of Victoria, Dr. Edwin Nissen, said: “The earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria was one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded on land. It is in the top five. Nobody was expecting such an earthquake on this faultline. Seismologists were not expecting such an earthquake.”
Professor of Earthquake Engineering at the University College of London, Dr. Tiziana Rossetto said: “It is known that the epicenter of the earthquake, Kahramanmaras, is very seismic. However, this was a very large event. So, this is not a common event. It’s definitely not something we think about within a seismic design setting.”
Disaster assistance team leader with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Stephen Allen said: “I have never seen anything like this. I have worked in some pretty tough spots. I - you know, I've done a lot of conflict zones and that kind of thing. In Turkiye, the government has a very high capacity for this kind of event. In this case, it's such a large tragedy...”
Seismologist and geophysicist from Northwestern University in the U.S., Susan Van Der Lee said: “It is not normal for earthquakes of this magnitude to happen so close to the surface within 24 hours, in fact, in a shorter period of time.”
Dr. Sylvain Barbot at the University of South Carolina in the U.S. said: “There are many surprising elements. Two large earthquakes take place on two different faultlines a few hours apart. I don’t think we have seen anything of this kind before. The second earthquake is on a less known line. We call this a ‘ghost line.’ It was passive. We wouldn’t have expected it to lead to an earthquake but we were mistaken.”
Dr. Judith Hubbard from the Geology Department at New York Cornell University said: “It is not a common event. I studied earthquakes in various regions of the world for the last 20 years, this is much more complex. We can consider this earthquake as extraordinary.”
Earth Sciences professor at Washington University, Harold Tobin said: “It is an event like no other. Not only in Turkey. It is the biggest earthquake in a residential location in the world and in the last century. It was expected, but its magnitude was not anticipated.”
Professor Shinji Toda from the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University said: “It is one of the largest earthquakes on land. It was a big unexpected earthquake.”
Earth Sciences and Engineering professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Paul Martin Mai said: “Another large earthquake happening in the same area hours after the first one is scientifically very unusual. The faults that were not moving much in the last three years started to break.”
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Whether earthquakes can be artificially produced is a hot discussion topic. It keeps coming up on the agenda following the earthquakes and the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) architecture.
Let’s look at two different interviews before and after the earthquake. Pay attention.
The first one: “The additional/required stress transfer necessary to trigger a fault that has reached the point of saturation, in other words, it is close to producing an earthquake, is about one-eighth of the air in a car tire.” (Prof. Naci Görür, Teke Tek, Feb. 8, Haber Türk.)
The second one: “HAARP is not a fiction. It is thought that the by sending very small frequency waves especially to the ionoesphere as per the project, and by reflecting these ultra/microwaves to certain areas on the earth’s crust, it causes/can cause resonance/vibrations inside rocks. This vibration can thus trigger an earthquake on fault lines where enough stress is accumulated. Earth scientists call this nonsense. It doesn’t sound convincing to us. We don’t know, I can’t say anything about it.” (Prof. Nac Görür, Sert Sorular, Jan. 11, TvNet.)
There is a truckload of material available on HAARP and artificial earthquakes, in other words, “induced seismicity.” However, it is impossible to say it has been “proven.” Scientists are also firm about this matter. Yet, a correction needs to be made now: The right question is not, “can an artificial earthquake be produced?” but “can an earthquake be induced?”! We can now safely answer this question: Yes. Earthquakes can be artificially induced!
This is the point we reach “doubt.” These citations lead to the theory that “earthquakes can happen artificially.” In fact, they even indicate that its time and intensity can be calculated. We are also led to think that no major initial energy, and eventually big structures like HAARP are needed. Even human practices such as deluging pressurized water to fault lines in order to drill shale gas/oil can cause this.
Ultimately, this is a map too. Can we place Türkiye’s interior and foreign policy conditions on the fault lines, like marking in points the earthquakes that happened?
This is a dangerous question but is it possible?
To be continued.
