The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) reported a 4.3 magnitude earthquake on Sunday in Soma, a district of the western province of Manisa. No casualties or damage was reported after the tremors around 14.55 p.m. local time. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 10.8 kilometers (6.71 miles).
The earthquake was followed with aftershocks, the biggest at a magnitude of 3.8. Two other aftershocks within 10 minutes of the earthquake took place.
Soma is a mining town that was struck by tragedy in 2014 when a fire in a coal mine claimed 301 lives. It is also some 150 kilometers away from Izmir, where 117 people died in an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 in 2020. Manisa itself is no stranger to earthquakes. In 2020, Akhisar, a town in the Aegean province, was rocked by one of its biggest earthquakes in recent memory, with a magnitude of 5.4, damaging old buildings.
Turkey has suffered devastating earthquakes in the past, including one near Istanbul in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people across the wider region. The country is among the world’s most seismically active as it is situated on several active fault lines, with dozens of minor earthquakes and aftershocks occurring daily. The most potentially devastating fault line is the North Anatolian Fault (NAF), the meeting point of the Anatolian and Eurasian plates. A strike-slip fault has formed as the Anatolian plate is being pushed northwestward by the Arabian plate. The NAF has produced devastating earthquakes throughout its history.
The Aegean region is an indented swathe of cities and towns where the eponymous sea cuts through the land that mountains face. Most settlements face countless islands, small and large, dotting the sea. The geography owes its current shape to earthquakes and shifts in tectonic plates. The wider region is located right in the center of the meeting point of three tectonic plates stretching to Africa, the Middle East and the Eurasian region. The Arabian and Eurasian plates collide to the east of the Aegean, in an area covering Izmir and other Turkish provinces. Their collision pushes the Anatolian plate further north toward the west, creating the potential for earthquakes.