Very strong mag. 6.1 earthquake - 17 km west of Düzce, Turkey, on Wednesday, Nov 23, 2022 at 4:08 am (GMT +3) -

A strong and shallow earthquake of magnitude 6.1 struck northwestern Turkey near the town of Düzce this morning at 4.08 a.m. local time.
According to preliminary information from local press, the tremor woke up thousands of people from their sleep and caused panic in the areas near the epicenter, where at least 22 people were injured as a result of the shaking and damages caused to buildings. There were no reports of fatalities, fortunately.

The quake was also widely felt in Turkey's largest city of Istanbul, located about 170 kilometers (105 miles) west of the epicenter. Turkey's disaster agency AFAD said there were controlled blackouts in the Duzce region and warned residents not to panic.

The quake occurred on one of (if not the) the most dangerous fault lines in the world, known as the North Anatolian Fault running through northern Turkey: here, the Anatolian micro-plate to the south that comprises most of Turkey's landmass, is moving westward along the boundary with the Eurasian plate to the north. The motion amounts to 23-24 mm per year and occurs in distinct slips along individual sections of the the fault which is when quakes occur.

Larger quakes occur along the fault every few years. Historically, the largest magnitudes up to 8 have always occurred the eastern areas of Anatolia, while quakes along the western sections of the fault reached maximum magnitudes of around 7.2-7.3. Scientists are worried in particular about the section of the fault underlying Istanbul, where a magnitude 6-7 event is statistically due.
The more so as over the past decades, stronger quakes each activating a section of the North Anatolian fault have been progressing westward. Will Istanbul be the next area to suffer a large quake? Maybe, but it is rather a question of when instead of if.

The German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) reported a magnitude 6.0 quake in Turkey near Düzce, only 10 minutes ago. The earthquake hit early morning on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022, at 4:08 am local time at a shallow depth of 10 km. The exact magnitude, epicenter, and depth of the quake might be revised within the next few hours or minutes as seismologists review data and refine their calculations, or as other agencies issue their report.
Our monitoring service identified a second report from the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) which listed the quake at magnitude 6.0 as well. Other agencies reporting the same quake include the citizen-seismograph network of RaspberryShake at magnitude 6.0, and the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) at magnitude 5.9.
Generally quakes of this magnitude are recorded by more than one agency and the results can vary, with subsequent reports that come in after the first one often showing more accuracy.
Based on the preliminary seismic data, the quake should have been felt by everybody in the area of the epicenter. In those areas, dangerous ground shaking occurred with the potential to inflict moderate to heavy damage to buildings and other infrastructure.
Towns or cities where the quake likely caused strong ground shaking include
Moderate shaking probably occurred in Düzce (pop. 57,700) located 17 km from the epicenter, Kocaali (pop. 15,100) 23 km away, Karasu Mahallesi (pop. 39,500) 29 km away, Alaplı (pop. 20,900) 31 km away, Karasu (pop. 30,700) 37 km away, Hendek (pop. 35,300) 37 km away, and Ereğli (pop. 88,800) 42 km away.
VolcanoDiscovery will automatically update magnitude and depth if these change and follow up if other significant news about the quake become available. If you're in the area, please send us your experience through our reporting mechanism, either online or via our mobile app. This will help us provide more first-hand updates to anyone around the globe who wants to know more about this quake.

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Based on its magnitude, the fault that was active during the quake ruptured along a surface of approx. 126 km² (=49 sqare miles) as a first-order estimate. The length of the rupture zone thus was probably around 19 km (12 mi).
Aftershocks typically occur during the weeks and months following the quake at or near the same fault, at distances of up to approx. two times the length of the rupture zone.
The often broadly linear arrangement of aftershock epicenters encompasses the rupture zone of the main shock (check on the map below to verify).

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