Turkey should focus on quake risk management: Professor

Turkey has done a lot since a major earthquake in 1999 in terms of disaster management, but the focus must be on taking measures before earthquakes strike, according to a prominent geologist.

"In the current mentality we seem to say: 'Let the earthquake happen, we will quickly heal the wounds.' This is an outdated approach," Professor Naci Görür has told the Hürriyet Daily News.

"Scientists are talking about the size of the threat and the expected damage, and they are also predicting some kind of timing. So, the right approach would be to take measures to minimize the damage."

You had predicted three months ago that an earthquake can take place around the eastern province of Elazığ. An earthquake of 6.8 magnitude hit the town of Sivrice in Elazığ on Jan. 25. What should we expect next?

Geology can define risky areas through different methodologies. One of them is the recurrence interval. Every fault creates earthquakes of the same magnitude with certain intervals, some in every 100 years, some in every 60 years.  The last major earthquakes on the East Anatolian Fault took place around Elazığ in 1874 and 1875. I had already warned in 2005 that we could expect an earthquake in this region after more than 140 years of silence.

There are two main faults in Turkey; one is the East Anatolian and the other is the North Anatolian. The latter released its stress through successive earthquakes in the 20th century: in 1939, 1942, 1944, 1957, 1967 and finally Gölcük earthquake in 1999 [when more than 17,000 people lost their lives]. Starting from Erzincan in the east, there has been a westward progressing sequence of large earthquakes, coming all the way to Gölcük and therefore reaching the doorstep of Istanbul.

In...