It was one of the two major faults in Turkey, the East Anatolian one, that triggered the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that occurred during the night and which has so far recorded about twenty replicas, the main one of magnitude 6.7 and many of a magnitude over 5 .
"The earthquake occurred on the East Anatolian fault, at the triple point where the Anatolian, Arabian and African blocks converge," seismologist Alessandro Amato of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv) told ANSA.
“Along this fault - he continued - there is a horizontal movement, i.e. of a transcurrent type.
It is a fault that runs from the Mediterranean towards the North-East, almost as far as the Black Sea, and rejoins the North Anatolian fault that reaches as far as Istanbul".
The fault “probably came to deform the coast.
In fact, anomalies were observed in the sea level in three points, in Turkey and in Cyprus, which triggered the tsunami warning.
Throughout the night - Amato said again - we followed the situation through observation points in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus.
In Italy, the arrival of a tsunami wave was expected around 6:30 in the south-eastern areas, but then the alert was closed”.