On February 10th, 2023, the Facebook account “Malkhaz Khabazi” published a post claiming that a few days before the strong earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Arabian tectonic plate, which generally moves only 2-3 centimetres per year, moved 3 meters, which creates a suspicious situation.
According to posts published by Russian-language Facebook pages (1, 2) and accounts (1, 2, 3, 4), Turkey moved 3 meters after the earthquake, and the Anatolian tectonic plate shifted southwest. The claims are based on Italian geologist Carlo Doloni.
The claim, as if the tectonic plate of Arabia shifted by 3 meters before the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, is disinformation. The information that the territory of Turkey itself has moved by 3 meters is false as well. In fact, this movement occurred in the zone of dislocation and gradually decreased with the completion of the fault line. A similar process is typical in the active site after strong earthquakes and has also been observed during other earthquakes.
The claim voiced by Malkhaz Khabazi, as if the tectonic plate of Arabia moved by 3 meters in a few days before the earthquake, is disinformation. Similar information cannot be found in open sources and media. The Arabian plate actually moves 1.4-1.8 centimetres in the northeast direction per year, which is one of the causes of earthquakes and other natural disasters in the region.
As for Turkey shifting by 3 meters after the earthquake, Carlo Doloni, the president of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, named in the Russian-language posts, indeed spoke about this issue, although he did not say that the entire territory of Turkey or the Anatolian tectonic plate moved by 3 meters. In fact, Dolioni was talking about the change in the fault zone. Speaking to the Turkish-language fact-checking platform Teyit, he clarified that a 3-meter displacement of Naskhlet does not mean a 3-meter displacement of the entire country and that the 3-meter displacement is slowly decreasing towards the end of the Naskhlet line.
The article by Teyit also points out that this process was observed during other strong earthquakes. For example, during the 2020 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Turkey’s Elazığı province, the shift was 1.9 meters, and after the 1999 Izmit earthquake, it was 5 meters.
This process was explained and visualized on Habertürk TV using cardboard papers.
A fault is a discontinuous dislocation of the tectonic rocks of the earth’s crust, during which the rocks’ relative movement occurs. There are several types of sawdust in nature, which differ from each other in the direction of movement. Earthquakes occur on faults, specifically when faults start moving suddenly and rapidly, and seismic energy is released.
The European Union satellite images also show that the shift occurred in the area around Anatolia, that is, where the earthquake was the strongest, and not in Turkey as a whole.
Several false and disinformative claims have already been disseminated about the earthquakes that occurred on the Turkish-Syrian border on February 6th. For more information, see the articles of “Myth Detector”:
About the Source
Malkhaz Khabazi, who published the post about the earthquake, often publishes posts with pro-Russian content on his Facebook account. The coat of arms of the Soviet Union, the so-called “Ribbon of St. George” and homophobic calls can also be found on his several profile photos. See the materials prepared by “Myth Detector” about the disinformation disseminated by the user in the past:
- Disinformation of ‘Russia Today’ about the Sale of Georgian Humanitarian Aid by Ukrainian Soldiers
- Who Claims that Ukraine Opened Fire on Separatist-Controlled Villages?
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