A strange coincidence…”terrifying earthquakes” struck the world in February

The world has witnessed many earthquakes since the beginning of this February, perhaps the most prominent of which was the devastating earthquake that struck 7 countries, led by Turkey and Syria, which left more than 36,000 dead, and hundreds of thousands injured and displaced.

However, the matter did not stop there, as earthquakes have struck other countries in recent days, with frequent earthquakes of weak and medium intensity, which we review in this report.

• On February 6, the world woke up to a devastating earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, centered in Kahramanmaraş in southeastern Turkey, and 7 other countries, led by Turkey and Syria, were affected by it, and caused extensive human damage in addition to large material losses, both to the infrastructure of the two countries and to the disruption of Public utilities and services, so that the authorities have an arduous task to restore the situation to what it was.
• On the same day, the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority recorded a second earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 in Kahramanmaraş, which exacerbated the scale of the disaster in the country.
• Aftershocks have been repeated over the past few days in Turkey, which, according to the authorities, has reached more than 4,300 followingshocks since the first earthquake.
• On February 3, seismic stations in Egypt recorded an earthquake measuring 4.23 on the Richter scale, 37 km northeast of Hurghada, without loss of life or property.
• On February 11, a 5.1-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan, 32 kilometers below the surface, and there were no reports of casualties or material losses.
• On the same day, a 6-magnitude earthquake hit the Indonesian coast, 239 km northwest of the city of Tupelo, where ten thousand people live, without any losses.
• On February 12, the National Institute of Geophysics in Morocco recorded an earthquake in the province of “Al Hoceima”, with a magnitude of 4.3 on the Richter scale, without damage.
• On February 15, an earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale struck an area near the New Zealand capital, below the Cook Strait that separates the North and South Islands at a depth of 74 km. There were no reports of the extent of the damage. New Zealand is located on the “Ring of Fire”, which is An arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean, where earthquakes are common.
• The city of Al-Marj, in eastern Libya, was subjected to a new earthquake on Wednesday, which was felt by most of the residents, and it is the fourth earthquake recorded during the past days, without losses, which raised concerns regarding earthquakes.
• On February 14, a 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit areas in Romania, and it was felt by residents of neighboring countries such as Bulgaria and Serbia, as it occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers in Gorge County, southeastern Romania, and did not cause damage or injuries.
• A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck the central Philippines, in the early hours of Thursday morning, without material damage or casualties.
• On February 1, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck the southern Philippines, with local authorities warning at the time of damage and followingshocks.
• The Seismological Center for Europe and the Mediterranean reported that an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale occurred in Croatia on February 15, at a depth of 10 km and 36 km southeast of the city of Rijeka, home to 141,000 people, without losses.
• On Thursday, an earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale struck Jordan and Syria, and residents of some Lebanese regions also felt that tremor.
• The US state of Texas was also hit by a 4.3-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale at a depth of 1.8 km, which was felt by a number of residents of the state without any losses.

February… bloody earthquakes

• Returning to global earthquake disasters, the year 1923 was an unforgettable year, as other devastating earthquakes struck China, Iran, Colombia and Russia, and the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia and Japan witnessed great activity this year.
• It was not forgotten that the month of February was present in 1923, when earthquakes measuring 8.5 shook the city of Kamchatka in the far east of Russia, causing waves of tsunamis.
• In February 2004, at least 500 people were killed in an earthquake in several Moroccan towns located on the Mediterranean coast, and the following year a 6.4-magnitude earthquake hit a remote area in the Kerman province of Iran, resulting in hundreds of victims.
• In late February 2010, an earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale struck a city in Chile, killing more than 200 people, and causing widespread destruction at the time.

Geological expert Abbas Sharqi explained to Sky News Arabia that there is still no way to predict earthquakes as is usual in the global weather, but some areas where earthquakes are active can be identified as possible sites for a recurrence of this, while the globe witnesses hundreds of earthquakes. Earthquakes occur daily, but many of them are either weak by less than 3 degrees, which we do not feel, or they occur in the oceans.

Sharqi pointed out that, for example, the Turkish lands and the surrounding areas witness frequent occurrence of earthquakes on a continuous basis to varying degrees, because the earth’s crust is surrounded by very huge voids that help in that.