An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.1 rocked an area some 145 kilometers (90 miles) away from Datça, a district of Turkey’s southwestern province of Muğla, on Monday. The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) announced that the earthquake, which occurred at 9:38 a.m. (6:38 a.m. GMT) local time, was at a depth of 7.3 kilometers in the Aegean Sea.
This was the second earthquake in two days near Datça and no casualties or substantial damage were reported in either. On Sunday, an earthquake at a magnitude of 4.2 was felt in Datça after it struck an area some 139 kilometers away from the district’s coast.
Datça is accustomed to tremors in the Aegean as it lies in close proximity to fault lines across the sea. The biggest earthquake was on Dec. 26, 2021, at a magnitude of 5.5 some 383 kilometers away from the district.
Turkey, a country sitting on multiple active fault lines, tightened inspections of buildings and implemented regulations to boost the safety of new buildings after the notorious 1999 earthquake that killed thousands in Istanbul and neighboring provinces.
In 2020, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Izmir, some 280 kilometers north of Datça, killed 115 people in one of the biggest earthquakes to hit the country in years.
Also in 2020, Datça was rocked by a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, which was followed by more than 400 aftershocks. Experts say seismic activity near Datça mostly stems from its geographical history as a region with numerous volcanic islands. Volcanic islands stretch from Datça to Greece, in a region home to multiple fault lines. Experts say some have the capacity to generate earthquakes of a magnitude of 6.5 and above. They warn an earthquake of such magnitude may generate tsunamis across the Aegean coasts of Turkey, a popular vacation destination and home to millions.
