Will Turkey-Syria earthquake redraw the fault lines of geopolitics?
As in previous decades and centuries, geologic rumblings could be followed by political upheavals in both countries.
PARIS — The epicenter of last week's horrific 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude sequential earthquakes that have hit Turkey and Syria this month, is located at the triple junction of the Dead Sea transform, the African and Arabian plates, and the Arabian and Anatolian plates — superseding seismology and geopolitics.
Since the beginning of recorded history, the area has been struck by devastating temblors roughly every 150 years. Two were especially infamous. On Dec. 12, 115 CE, a magnitude 7.5 quake killed at least 250,000 people in Antioch — modern-day Antakya, or Hatay. The city was crowded because Roman emperor Trajan and his successor Hadrian were wintering there, during their military campaign against the Parthians of Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq).
