Türkiye's Marmara region, which is home to the country's largest city Istanbul, is one of the best monitored in the world for seismic activity, according to a senior Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) official.
"When we look at the seismicity and monitoring of the region, I can proudly say this: The Marmara region is perhaps one of the best-monitored regions in the world," AFAD's head of earthquake and risk reduction Orhan Tatar told Demirören News Agency (DHA).
"I can say that it is one of the best regions where seismic activity is monitored in the most intense and effective way with different methods," he added.
Tatar said that the AFAD currently has around 262 earthquake observation stations in the region, as well as deep seismometer devices in both the east and west of the Marmara Sea.
"In other words, we have sensors placed at a depth of approximately 300 meters (985 feet) underground and monitoring systems with different sensors at different depths that we place at every 100 meters," Tatar said.
"We have some monitoring networks where we can track small crustal movements. In addition to these, we have a number of sensors, which we call strain gauges, with which we can monitor the activity on the fault that we think will cause this earthquake."
Tatar said the AFAD has an earthquake monitoring and evaluation center operating 24/7 within its earthquake department.
"This is truly a place where our country's pulse is kept and monitored in terms of earthquakes," he added. "We currently have 1,145 earthquake recording stations in our country. This number will reach 1,185 by the end of the year, and we plan to increase this number to over 1,200 in the near future. In this sense, our country perhaps has the largest seismic observation network in Europe."
Tatar also spoke about the importance of intervention and evacuation issues in a possible earthquake in Istanbul.
"While preparations are being made against a possible earthquake in Istanbul, the AFAD, like all institutions of our state, continues its work intensively regarding Istanbul on issues that fall within its area of responsibility," Tatar said. "One of these is the intervention aspect, the other is the evacuation issue, which is very important."
Tatar said that evacuation plans for Istanbul are "very healthy and feasible," but they need to be in a way that will find a response on the field.
"In this regard, these studies are being carried out intensively within our AFAD Istanbul Provincial Directorate, together with all our stakeholders, especially with all our institutions that are stakeholders in the Türkiye Disaster Response Plan," Tatar said.
