Where are the world's earthquake hotspots?

Where are the world’s earthquake hotspots? How Turkey, Italy and China join a number of countries bordering the ‘Ring of Fire’ where 90 PER CENT of deadly tremors occur

JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE 

The death toll from the tragic earthquake in Turkey and Syria has pushed past 20,000 – and it could be one of the deadliest of the decade.

Buildings collapsed with people sleeping inside in the early hours of Monday when the initial 7.8 magnitude shock occurred, followed by multiple aftershocks. 

Although the likes of Japan and California are famous for earthquakes, Turkey and Syria are within a seismically active area where three tectonic plates converge. 

While it is not possible to predict exactly where and when earthquakes will hit, we know the worst events will be along Earth’s plate boundaries. 

Here, MailOnline takes a look at the world’s earthquake hotspots – including Italy, New Zealand and Indonesia – and the churning plates beneath. 

It’s well-known that earthquakes occur in subduction zones, when two tectonic plates that are sliding in opposite directions stick and then slip suddenly. 

‘An earthquake happens at a place where strain that has built gradually up over decades is finally able to overcome resistance,’ David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University, told MailOnline. 

‘This allows adjacent rock masses to suddenly snap past each other.’ 

Severe earthquakes normally occur over fault lines where tectonic plates meet, but minor tremors – which still register on the Richter sale – can happen in the middle of these plates.  

The epicentre of Monday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake was about 16 miles (26 km) east of the Turkish city of Nurdagi, close to the Syrian border. 

Hours later, a second 7.5-magnitude earthquake hit two-and-a-half miles south-southeast of the Turkish town of Ekinozu.  

Turkey lies on major faultlines that border three different tectonic plates — Anatolian, Arabian and African. 

The Arabian plate pushes northwards into the Eurasian plate, squeezing the Anatolian Plate westwards towards the Aegean Sea. 

‘This is a well-known region of high seismicity,’ Dr Anastasios Sextos, professor of earthquake engineering at the University of Bristol, told MailOnline. 

ITALY 

Further west, Italy can be prone to earthquakes, notably a 6.2 magnitude quake which killed nearly 300 people in the town of Amatrice and nearby villages in 2016.

Modena in northern Italy was hit by a 5.8 magnitude quake in 2012 which killed 17 people and injured another 350.

A more mild 2.6 magnitude quake struck around a mile north of Camaiore in 2020, forcing people to flee from their homes near the start of the Covid pandemic.  

Almost the whole Italian peninsula but especially its southern part is located close to the line between the Eurasian and African plates that grate against each other.

The Apennine Mountains, known as the geological spine of Italy, runs from north to south of the country and contains several fault lines – where two tectonic plates come together. 

CALIFORNIA 

Somewhere between 80 to 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur along an area commonly known as the ‘Ring of Fire’. 

This horseshoe-shaped geological disaster zone is located roughly around the rim of the Pacific Ocean. 

It covers the west coast of the US – notably California – western Mexico and Central America, western South America including Peru, New Zealand, Japan and more. 

Somewhere like California is prone to earthquakes because it lies on the San Andreas Fault, where two tectonic plates come together. 

The San Andreas Fault extends roughly 750 miles through the western US state, with the Pacific Plate on one side and the Pacific Plate on the other. 

The great majority of California’s population lives in the vicinity of the San Andreas Fault, which forms a part of the Ring of Fire and can even be seen in the ground. 

The presence of the San Andreas Fault was brought dramatically to world attention on April 18, 1906, when sudden displacement along the fault produced the San Francisco earthquake and resulting fires.

NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand is on the boundary between two tectonic plates, the Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate, although larger neighbour Australia is further away from the boundary has less severe tremors. 

One of New Zealand’s worst ever disasters was the 6.3 magnitude Christchurch earthquake in February 2011, which killed 185 people and badly damaged the city’s buildings and infrastructure. 

This event was actually an aftershock from another quake the previous September, which caused two deaths.  

The biggest known earthquake in New Zealand was a magnitude 8.2 in Wairarapa, 1855. 

It was caused by movement along a fault in Palliser Bay, at the southern end of the North Island, and altered the landscape of the Wellington region, the nation’s capital. 

However, the number of fatalities caused was estimated at between just five and nine and surprisingly few people were injured.