On 6th February 2023 4:17 Turkey Time, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit a nearby area of the Turkish city Gaziantep. A magnitude 7.5 aftershock was measured in Kahramanmaraş Province later that day. This was followed by several thousand smaller aftershocks, at least two hundred of them being 4.0 or stronger. The epicentre of these earthquakes was on the East Anatolian Fault, where the Arabia and Anatolia plates meet. As a consequence of these shakes, the two plates moved at least three meters along each other on a hundred-kilometre line.
It is currently estimated that there are around 50 thousand casualties and more than 120 thousand injured. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without a home in an area of 30 million people. Damages are estimated around 84 billion dollars. Many buildings and memorials collapsed or suffered permanent damage. Roads and railway infrastructure were also severely hit.
The earthquakes affected the northern area of Syria as well. The initial shake had shock waves as big as Hungary, and it was felt all the way from Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine to Cyprus. This was the fifth biggest earthquake of the 21st century.
Because of this tragedy, the we created a comprehensive interactive site presenting the biggest earthquakes of the past years.
Using the data from United States Geological Survey (USGS) website, we created an interactive globe map showing the magnitude 5.5 or stronger earthquakes of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The interactive site presents the almost 40 thousand earthquakes to the reader, touching upon topics of the latest Turkey-Syria earthquake, the biggest earthquakes of recent history, and a short description on the science of earthquakes.
The project uses this Mapbox GL JS tutorial of a 3d interactive globe. The scrollytelling section is a wireframe copied from previous projects of similar fashion.
Click here to access the full project.
Published on 23rd February 2022.
Szabó Krisztián 