17 km is the same depth as the 1994 Northridge Quake.
Northridge was 6.7 Richter, this Turk quake at 7.8 is over 10 times as powerful.
I was 50 miles from both Northridge and Sylmar and they were still scary as hell. I wouldn’t want to find out what 7.8 would be like.
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/massive-7-8-mag-earthquake-in-turkey/
Many Twitter threads. Devi station is severe.
This one in Turkey would have produced much greater loss of life even without the added energy. Most residential buildings at the time in So Cal were light wood framing, which performed well, all things considered.
The use of unreinforced masonry, and under-reinforced concrete in Turkey and Syria is going to produce horrible numbers of casualties.