Director General of the National Center for Earthquakes: There are no indications of the possibility of a tsunami and the impact of aftershocks will decrease with time

Damascus-SANA

The Director General of the National Center for Earthquakes, Dr. Raed Ahmed, confirmed that the main epicenter of the earthquake that struck the country at dawn today is located on the plate boundaries located between the Arab-Eurasian plate on the North Anatolian Fault and the extension of an area that is one of the most dangerous areas for the occurrence of earthquakes.

Ahmed explained in a statement to SANA reporter that after the earthquake occurred, which affected several Syrian governorates, moderate aftershocks occurred, including two of magnitude 6.3 and 6.4 during very short periods, and the number of aftershocks until 12:00 noon reached 25, and their impact was limited. He indicated that at exactly 1:24 a.m. another earthquake struck central Turkey, with a magnitude of 7.8 degrees, at a distance farther from the focus of the first earthquake, and also led to aftershocks of lesser intensity than the previous one, and their frequency will diminish and decrease with time.

Ahmed denied what some social networking sites are promoting about the possibility of a tsunami occurring at sea, because all the tremors were concentrated on land, and therefore there are no indications or warnings of the possibility of a tsunami, especially since this wave has conditions and after more than 10 hours have passed, it is not expected to occur. This matter.

And Ahmed indicated that the National Seismological Center is working to record aftershocks continuously, especially from the beginning of 2020 until 2022, as a network of new stations was established for the first time after terrorism destroyed most of the stations, and all stations except for two old stations went out of service, and 25 ready stations were installed. Its signals reach the center successively according to its technical readiness, explaining that the center records earthquakes with two types of velocity and acceleration recordings, which are very important as a database for the structural and design engineer.

Ahmed said: Since December 18, 2022, we have mobilized all efforts in the center to record the tremors despite the many difficulties we face, and we recorded that there is a possibility of an increase in moderate tremors, and what happened since 12-18-2022 until this moment are unusual tremors that occurred for the first time. From the age of the national seismic network.

On how to record signals in earthquake monitoring stations, Dr. Khaled Omar, the assistant general manager of the center, explained that there are many stations distributed over the Syrian geography that record ground movements, and cover all areas, as they carry out recording operations around the clock, and send the recordings to the central station in Damascus.

Omar explained that as soon as any earthquake occurs in a place, the electronic devices located in the main monitoring center begin to record the waves of vibrations transmitted from all stations, and the epicenter, location, coordinates, depth and intensity of the earthquake are determined, then the competent and concerned authorities are notified of the occurrence of the tremor and information related to it.

Mahran Abu Fakhr

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