Natural Disaster That Happened in Turkey

❁ Assalamualaikum ❁

Hi everyone! So basically this is my last chapter for this topic which is my blog is all about Turkey. So I am so excited to be telling you this because this is one of my favorite things to share with you about what happened in Turkey. Well, you can see from the title above what is this entry is going to tell you. Natural disaster. Yes. Why don't we start with the definition first? Though I believe that all of you know what natural disaster is, but I just want to state it clearly the actual meaning of it. Just for your general knowledge, natural disaster is a natural event such as flood, earthquake, or hurricane that causes a huge damage or loss of life. Based on what I've found on the internet, a natural disaster that happened in a particular place, state or even the whole country can cause loss of life or property damage and obviously leaves some economic damage as well. And you know, this took a very long time to recover the whole thing that is destroyed.

Example of natural disasters ☟ ☟ ☟

Tsunami hit the Honolulu 

Hurricane 

Huge flood that hit one of the cities in China

Fellow readers, natural disaster does happens to all part of the world and it can destroy people's lives and the environments and places in which they live. It is obviously God's decision to make it happen and we as a normal human being has no power to stop it all. It can happen anytime that caused by nature and there is nothing that we can do to prevent them from happening. Moreover, there are many types of natural disasters and we need to be extra aware of it to ever happen so that we can prepare when such disasters do arrive.

As you can see from the title, I am going to tell you about natural disaster that happened in Turkey, which is earthquake. So generally earthquake is one of the types of natural disaster that can cause many fatalities like any other natural disaster when it happens. The movements of the plates in the earth's crust cause them. Well, earthquake is something like those plates don't usually move smoothly and get stuck, causing a build-up of pressure. So when this pressure is released, than the earthquake occurs. In fact, earthquake that happen under the water can cause a tsunami, as the quake causes a huge waves by pushing large volumes of water to the surface.

Earthquake that happened in Turkey hit the Izmit on 17th August 1999. The later research shows an estimation that there was a 12% chance of this earthquake to occur in Turkey in the 30 years from 1996-2026.

Turkish residents sit in front of their destroyed apartment caused by the earthquake

Furthermore, it is stated in the International Business Times, over 17,000 of people were killed from the incident. "The tremor struck in the middle of the night, meaning many victims were asleep in bed with no change to flee." (Ghosh, 2011). The worse thing is, it hits Izmit that has a large population and industrialized city. As a result, many people died from falling debris, while the whole neighborhoods collapsed and vanished. Plus, many buildings were destroyed and most of the victims have no place to be their shelter. It was a powerful earthquake as it destroyed the buildings in Istanbul which was 50 miles away from the earthquake actually took place. Then it even caused the highway between Istanbul and Ankara to sway and that has caused most of the cars crashed.

On the other hand, the earthquake caused a fire at a local oil refinery as well. It caused more than 700, 000 tons of stored oil destroyed. Thus, it took several days for the inferno to get under control. Basically, as what has been recorded, the natural disaster had wounded 44, 000 people and created 500, 000 homeless. Thus, the World Bank has made an estimation of the property losses. The quake had caused approximately up to $6.5 billion in direct property losses.

Here is some pictures of how the Izmit looks like after got hit by the earthquake.

The wreckage of houses

Hospital that is destroyed by the quake

Generally, by seeing this natural disaster that happens in any countries or even in our own country, it is something that we need to ponder. We don't know when the disaster strikes because it can hit us in anytime. So just a gentle reminder, we better be prepared for anything to happen. With that, I end my entry here and I really hope that I have shared with you plenty of information. As usual, if you have anything to ask, just buzz me in the comment box below. I will get to you as soon as I get the comment. Thank you for reading, everyone. Have a nice day ahead! ☺