[RayChuang88]

The biggest problem with earthquakes in places like Turkey and Iran (both countries with known very active earthquake faults) is that many buildings in both countries were built without consideration for earthquake safety, probably because it would have been too costly to implement the earthquake safety measures found on newer buildings in Taiwan, Japan and in California.

I cite for example the historic city of Bam in southeast Iran, famous for its structures built from an adobe-like material. The 2003 earthquake resulted in a massive collapse of those structures, killing 26,271 people. It could be decades before these structures--now strengthened to withstand earthquakes--are rebuilt.

[globelamp]

Contrasting this with the perhaps 100x times more energetic march quake in Japan is instructive. As can be seen in the videos of the Tsunami sweeping into the areas close to the epicenter, there was virtually no quake damage to the nearby cities. Building standards matter - a lot.

Turkey does have some decent building codes, but they are of recent date, so most buildings do not comply. There is also a fair amount of corruption going around.