Disasters Redux: This Time, Earthquakes

 

In several recent posts, I've focused on some of the bad things that can happen to our cities and real estate, including pandemics (COVID), conflicts (Ukraine's invasion by Russia), climate change, and bad urban policies.  On February 6, 2023, southern Turkey and northern Syria were struck by a 7.8 earthquake centered in Turkey's southernmost province of Antakaya, and a series of aftershocks.  As of this writing the death toll is estimated to be about 50,000 in Turkey and 9,000 in Syria, with other devastating losses, including injuries, property damage, and large stresses on individuals and communities.

Teaching urban courses for a quarter century, I have assigned (or students volunteered) a number of papers asking students to apply the course's lessons to (usually then current) disasters such as Hurricane Katrina (2005), Haiti's 2010 earthquake, and of course the 9/11 attacks on New York City, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  More recently, I've discussed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in some of my guest lectures.

But the most recent deck I've created relates to the February 8, 2023 earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria. It's still a work in progress, but you can download the current version here.