The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck western Turkey on August 17, 1999 occurred on one of the world's longest and best studied strike-slip (horizontal-motion) faults: the 1,300-km-long, east-west-trending, right-lateral North Anatolian fault. The epicenter was SW of the city of Izmit, in the industrial heartland of Turkey, just 80 km SE of Istanbul. The focal depth was 17 km. The North Anatolian fault is similar in many respects to the right-lateral strike-slip San Andreas fault of California. Turkey has had a long history of large earthquakes that have generally progressed systematically from east to west along the North Anatolian fault. Since 1939, this fault has seen 11 earthquakes of magnitude 6.7 or greater. The 1999 Izmit event filled in a 100-150 km long gap between a magnitude 7.1 event in 1967 and a magnitude 6.4 event in 1963. This gap had been previously identified as having a high probability for a damaging earthquake in the near future. The total length of fault rupture for the Izmit event was 160-170 km. Most fault movements were right lateral, with major displacements of 3-4 m along much of this distance. Some reports estimated up to 115,000 buildings damaged beyond repair, with total building losses placed at about 5 billion dollars (U.S.). Regional power outages occurred, with full power not restored for 12 days. At least 15,135 persons died in the Izmit earthquake, at least 23,984 were injured, and 600,000 were left homeless.
