Why do they say that the birds announced the earthquake in Turkey and Syria?

Following the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people in Turkey and Syria, videos of dozens of birds allegedly fluttering desperately in the skies of affected areas in the hours before the quake appeared on social media.

In this sense, although it was not possible to confirm whether the images correspond to moments preceding the earthquake, many wondered if animals, especially birds,

.

According to a report prepared by The Washington Post in this regard,

.

Let's see what two sources say.

matter of waves

For the

, it's all about seismic wave perception.

For that you have to know that, when it comes to earthquakes, there are primary (P) and secondary (S) waves.

As the Post collects, the abnormal behavior of the animals before the tremors may have to do with the difference between the two types of waves.

The explanation is that the P waves, the first emitted by an earthquake, travel miles per second from the epicenter and can be noticeable to animals like the S waves, which are stronger and shake the ground alarmingly, in this case Also to humans.

Birds fly over the destroyed minaret of a mosque in the northern city of Ariha, on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, June 10, 2012. Illustrative photo.AP

“Very few humans notice the smaller P wave that travels faster from the earthquake source and arrives before the larger S wave.

But many animals with more acute senses can feel the P wave seconds before the S wave arrives, ”said a guide from the Service to the US media.

animals vs humans

As a second source, a study prepared by the director of the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior,

, can be taken .

For Wikelski, animals can feel earthquakes even before they occur.

"We have a very good indication that the animals are actually feeling the precursors of earthquakes, and it's not seismic activity," the researcher told the Post.

A photograph taken on January 12, 2022 shows migratory birds in a tree on a lake in front of one of the palaces of the late ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, near the Baghdad airport.

Illustrative photo AFP

In a 2020 study, researchers attached electronic tags (like small mobile phones) to cows, dogs, and sheep on an Italian farm and watched their movement for months when earthquakes were detected nearby.

Doing this they discovered that the animals were usually "superactive" and produced continuous movements of more than 45 minutes before seven or eight earthquakes in the vicinity.

The result of the study, then, suggested that animals can detect earthquakes potentially more than 12 hours before humans and well before any earthquake.

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