Experts urge calm after 170 microearthquakes off Istanbul
More than 170 microearthquakes have been detected around the Princes’ Islands fault in the Marmara Sea since Aug. 18, but experts said the cluster alone was not evidence of an imminent major earthquake.
The strongest tremor, with a magnitude of 3.2, struck south of the islands on Aug. 19.
Most of the activity was concentrated near a limited section of the fault, according to Türkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD).
Bahadır Aktuğ, a member of AFAD’s Earthquake Science Board and a geophysics professor at Ankara University, said the activity covered only about seven kilometers of the 44-kilometer fault.
