The 1903 Malazgirt earthquake struck Malazgirt

Malazgirt

Malazgirt is a town in Muş Province in eastern Turkey, with a population of 23,697 .-Founding:...

 of Muş Province

Mus Province

Muş Province is a province in eastern Turkey. It is 8,196 km² in area, and has a population of 406,886 . The population was 453,654 in 2000. The provincial capital is the city of Muş...

 in eastern Turkey

Eastern Anatolia Region

The Eastern Anatolia Region is one of seven non-administrative subdivisions of Turkey and encompasses its eastern provinces.The region and the name "Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi" were first defined at the First Geography Congress in 1941. It has the highest average altitude, largest geographical area, and...

 on April 28, 1903. Registering a surface wave magnitude

Surface wave magnitude

The surface wave magnitude scale is one of the magnitude scales used in seismology to describe the size of an earthquake. It is based on measurements in Rayleigh surface waves that travel primarily along the uppermost layers of the earth...

 of 7.0, the earthquake originated from a highly active seismic zone. It killed 3,500 people and 20,000 animals, destroyed 12,000 homes, and is now listed among the world's deadliest earthquakes in recorded history. To this day, Turkey is threatened by major earthquakes - more than 100 earthquakes over 7.0 have taken place in the country's known history.

Geology

The country of Turkey is situated on a highly active section of the Eurasian Plate

Eurasian Plate

The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate which includes most of the continent of Eurasia , with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Chersky Range in East Siberia...

 boundary. The country is mainly mountainous, approximately 85 percent of the country is at an elevation of 450 m (1,476 ft) or more. The entire country lies within a zone of active deformation known as the Alpide belt

Alpide belt

The Alpide belt is a mountain range which extends along the southern margin of Eurasia. Stretching from Java to Sumatra through the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic, it includes the Alps, the Carpathians, the mountains of Asia Minor and Iran, the Hindu Kush, the Himalayas,...

. This zone of continental collision

Continental collision

Continental collision is a phenomenon of the plate tectonics of Earth that occurs at convergent boundaries. Continental collision is a variation on the fundamental process of subduction, whereby the subduction zone is destroyed, mountains produced, and two continents sutured together...

 reaches from the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 to the Himalaya Mountains and beyond; dating back to the Paleogene

Paleogene

The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that began 65.5 ± 0.3 and ended 23.03 ± 0.05 million years ago and comprises the first part of the Cenozoic Era...

 period. It has formed due to convergent

Convergent boundary

In plate tectonics, a convergent boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary , is an actively deforming region where two tectonic plates or fragments of lithosphere move toward one another and collide...

 movement between the Arabian

Arabian Plate

The Arabian Plate is one of three tectonic plates which have been moving northward over millions of years and colliding with the Eurasian Plate...

, African

African Plate

The African Plate is a tectonic plate which includes the continent of Africa, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and various surrounding ocean ridges.-Boundaries:...

, and Indian continental plates and the Eurasian plate. The Anatolian Plate

Anatolian Plate

The Anatolian Plate is a continental tectonic plate consisting primarily of the country of Turkey.The easterly side is a boundary with the Arabian Plate, the East Anatolian Fault, a left lateral transform fault....

 is currently being squeezed out to the west by the ongoing collision between the Arabian plate and the Eurasian Plate, bounded to the southeast by the East Anatolian Fault

East Anatolian Fault

The East Anatolian Fault is a major strike-slip fault zone in eastern Turkey. It forms the transform type tectonic boundary between the Anatolian Plate and the northward-moving Arabian Plate. The difference in the relative motions of the two plates is manifest in the left lateral motion along the...

 and to the north by the North Anatolian Fault

North Anatolian Fault

The North Anatolian Fault is a major active right lateral-moving strike-slip fault in northern Anatolia which runs along the transform boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Plate. The fault extends westward from a junction with the East Anatolian Fault at the Karliova Triple...

.To the east of the junction of these two faults, the Arabian Plate is in direct collision with the Eurasian Plate. This area is characterised by thrust fault

Thrust fault

A thrust fault is a type of fault, or break in the Earth's crust across which there has been relative movement, in which rocks of lower stratigraphic position are pushed up and over higher strata. They are often recognized because they place older rocks above younger...

ing and was the area in which the 1903 event occurred.

Damage and casualties

Among the world's deadliest earthquakes, the earthquake caused 3,500 direct fatalities. 12,000 homes were devastated. 20,000 animals (other than humans) were killed in the epicentral region of Malazgirt-Patnos

Patnos

Patnos is a district of Ağrı Province of Turkey on a plain surrounded by high mountains including Süphan, watered by tributaries of the Murat River. 82 km south of the city of Ağrı on the road to Van...

. Damage to a lesser extent reached Erzurum

Erzurum

Erzurum is a city in Turkey. It is the largest city, the capital of Erzurum Province. The city is situated 1757 meters above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 361,235 in the 2000 census. .Erzurum, known as "The Rock" in NATO code, served as NATO's southeastern-most air force post during the...

 and Bitlis

Bitlis

Bitlis is a town in eastern Turkey and the capital of Bitlis Province. The town is located at an elevation of 1,400 metres, 15 km from Lake Van, in the steep-sided valley of the Bitlis River, a tributary of the Tigris. The local economy is mainly based on agricultural products which include...

. On August 6, additional damage took place and people were injured when an aftershock

Aftershock

An aftershock is a smaller earthquake that occurs after a previous large earthquake, in the same area of the main shock. If an aftershock is larger than the main shock, the aftershock is redesignated as the main shock and the original main shock is redesignated as a foreshock...

 rocked the same region.

Threat

Major earthquakes have taken place in the country as early as 411 B.C. In the 20th century, 58 major destructive earthquakes took place - in total, they have killed more than 100,000 people, injured 150,000, and desolated approximately 420,000 homes and buildings. More than 100 earthquakes registering Richter scale magnitudes over 7 have taken place in the country historically.