Expert blames 'pancake' collapses for Turkey quake carnage
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Shiomitsu notes that the quake generated severe shaking equivalent to a seismic intensity of 7 on Japan's seismic intensity scale of zero to 7 in Hassa, Hatay region, about 60 kilometers southwest of the epicenter.
In recent decades, three quakes in have generated the same seismic intensity: the Great Hanshin-Awaji in 1995, the Great East in 2011, and the Kumamoto in 2016. All three caused catastrophic damage.
Shiomitsu also reports that during the Turkey earthquake, shaking equivalent to a Japanese scale upper and lower 6 extended to a range of about 160 kilometers from the epicenter.
He warns that tremors of that size could cause serious damage to relatively large structures, such as middle-rise buildings in . "It's believed that very powerful tremors with an intensity of upper 6 to 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, which can cause severe damage to buildings in , were the reason for the extensive damage, but we need to confirm this."