EXPLAINER - Why was the Turkey-Syria earthquake so bad?

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By Gloria Dickie LONDON (Reuters) - The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday is likely to be one of the deadliest this decade, seismologists said, with a more than 100 km (62 miles) rupture between the Anatolian and Arabian plates. Here is what scientists said happened beneath the earth's surface and what to expect in the aftermath:

WHERE DID THE EARTHQUAKE ORIGINATE? The epicentre was about 26 km east of the Turkish city of Nurdagi at a depth of about 18 km on the East Anatolian Fault. The quake radiated towards the northeast, bringing devastation to central Turkey and Syria. During the 20th century, the East Anatolian Fault yielded little major seismic activity. "If we were going simply by (major) earthquakes that were recorded by seismometers, it would look more or less blank," said Roger Musson, an honorary research associate at the British Geological Survey. Only three earthquakes have registered above 6.0 on the Richter Scale since 1970 in the area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But in 1822, a 7.0 quake hit the region, killing an estimated 20,000 people.

HOW BAD WAS THIS EARTHQUAKE?

On average, there are fewer than 20 quakes over 7.0 magnitude in any year, making Monday's event severe. Compared with the 6.2 earthquake that hit central Italy in 2016 and killed some 300 people, the Turkey-Syria earthquake released 250 times as much energy, according to Joanna Faure Walker, head of the University College London Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction. Only two of the deadliest earthquakes from 2013 to 2022 were of the same magnitude as Monday's quake.

WHY WAS IT SO SEVERE?

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a bloody story on France 5

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By Le Figaro -- CRITICISM – The excellent investigation carried out by Sofia Amara and Jérôme Fritel reveals the networks of hidden financing, thanks to drugs, of the Shiite militia. Hezbollah, the prohibited investigationa three-part documentary not to be missed, this Sunday February 5 at 8:55 p.m. on France 5. With Hezbollah,Iran has created the most powerful asymmetrical military force in modern history.” One of the hardest to pin down as well. Former CIA agent Robert Baer, ​​who spent years tracking down Lebanon’s “Party of God,” knows this. More than a real investigation into its forty years of existence, Hezbollah, the prohibited investigationthe documentary in three 52-minute episodes each by journalists Jérôme Fritel and Sofia Amara, broadcast this Sunday February 5 on France 5, is first and foremost the story of an infiltration operation by the financing networks of the Lebanese Shiite militia in from drug money.

Alongside Bashar al-Assad

An infiltration codenamed Cassandra, which will lead the sleuths of the American DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) from Colombia and Venezuela to West Africa before ending in a fiasco on the altar of cold realpolitik in Paris, the day of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to France in January 2016. Thanks to telephone interceptions, the DEA had managed in the early 2000s to infiltrate one of its agents of Lebanese origin with Chekri Harb , responsible on behalf of Hezbollah for part of the drug trafficking that the movement organizes from Colombia.

Over more than fifteen years, the agency then succeeded in identifying one by one the barons of a cartel which brought in up to 1 billion dollars a year to Hezbollah. From Ali Fayad, in charge of buying weapons for drugs in Russia and Ukraine for the war waged by the militia alongside Bashar el-Assad in Syria, to Mohammed Nourredine, who supervised operations in Europe from Paris , via Ali Joumaa, Ali Kharoubi, Adnan Tabaja and Abdallah Safieddine, the “godfather” of the cartel, as if by chance ambassador of the militia to his Iranian godfather.

Abductions of Americans and French

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Lebanese officials must bear responsibility: Barbara Leaf

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US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf told Lebanese MPs that the solution today is in the hands of Lebanese officials who must bear the responsibility for getting the country out of this situation it has reached. MPs Elias Bou Saab, Mark Daou, Neamat Freim, and Yassin Yassin held a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf as part of their series of meetings in Washington. “This is no longer 1983, and the strategy used in Iraq will be adopted with Lebanon. Thus all countries must handle their matters,” Leaf told the Lebanese delegation, according to what sources confirmed to LBCI. During the meeting, Leaf added that the United States of America is fulfilling its duty towards Lebanon, significantly assisting the army. Still, the Lebanese must make an effort to get out of the crisis.

UN experts slam slow progress in Lebanese activist murder probe

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by arabnews.com -- AFP -- GENEVA:UN rights experts voiced deep concern Thursday at the slow pace of an investigation into the killing of Lebanese intellectual Lokman Slim two years ago, demanding that Beirut ensure accountability. “It is incumbent on the Lebanese authorities to fully investigate and bring to justice the perpetrators of this heinous crime,” the four independent experts said. “Failing to carry out a prompt and effective investigation may in itself constitute a violation of the right to life.”

A secular activist from a Shiite family, 58-year-old Slim was found dead in his car on February 4, 2021, a day after his family reported him missing. His bullet-riddled body was found in southern Lebanon — a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement of which he was heavily critical. In their statement, the UN special rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions, the independence of judges and lawyers, the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the situation of human rights defenders voiced outrage that no one responsible for his assassination had been identified. “Shedding light on the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Lokman Slim and bringing those responsible to justice is also part of the State’s obligation to protect freedom of opinion and expression,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the world body. “A culture of impunity not only emboldens the killers of Mr. Slim, it will also have a chilling effect on civil society as it sends a chilling message to other activists to self-censor,” they said.

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