The tremor and even the aftershocks were measured by the Observatory’s seismometers. The Observatory records tremors daily around the world. That those of that night were measured is therefore not exceptional. The greater the magnitude of an earthquake, the further from the epicenter it can be recorded.
By Belga
Ihe Royal Observatory of Belgium in Uccle recorded the tremors of the earthquake which hit Turkey and Syria last night, he said on Monday.
The tremor and even the aftershocks were measured by the Observatory’s seismometers. “But people in Belgium didn’t feel the earthquake,” explains Koen Van Noten of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. “The earthquake was noticeable up to 200 to 300 km from its epicentre. In Belgium, we therefore felt nothing. The tremors were only measured by our instruments”.
The Observatory records tremors daily around the world. That those of that night were measured is therefore not exceptional. The greater the magnitude of an earthquake, the further from the epicenter it can be recorded. In the case of an earthquake in Turkey, the seismometers of Uccle can pick it up as soon as it reaches a magnitude of 4 to 5. An earthquake of magnitude 2 to 3 occurring in the Netherlands will also appear on the instruments of measurement of the Uccle station.
The first quake, with a magnitude of 7.8, occurred at 4:17 a.m. local time on Monday (2:17 a.m. Belgian time). It occurred in Turkey in the district of Pazarcik, in the province of Kahramanmaras (southeast), about 60 kilometers as the crow flies from the Syrian border, and at a depth of about 17.9 kilometers. Dozens of aftershocks followed, before a new earthquake of magnitude 7.5, at 11:24 a.m. Belgian time, still in southeastern Turkey, 4 kilometers southeast of the town of Ekinozu.
The joint human toll in Syria and Turkey currently stands at more than 2,300 dead, thousands injured and considerable material damage.
