With the strength of the eastern Mediterranean earthquake and the cracks it caused in several facilities, fears are escalating that the Turkish dams will be affected.
An earthquake expert explains to “Sky News Arabia” the seriousness of earthquakes on dams, after Turkish media reported that the earthquake that shook the country at dawn last Monday prompted the authorities to open the Sultan Suyu Dam in Malatya to drain water from it as a precautionary measure.
“The Sultansuyu Dam will be gradually emptied as a precautionary measure. Our citizens at the bottom of the dam should be careful,” the governor of Malatya said in a statement, stressing that “there is no problem with our other dams.”
Seismic building code
Omar El-Sharkawy, a professor of earthquakes at the National Institute for Astronomical and Geophysical Research in Cairo, identifies the factors that control the vulnerability of Turkey’s dams to earthquakes:
• The construction of dams depends on choosing construction areas according to extensive geophysical studies, including a seismic study of the area.
• These studies are used to identify the nature of the rocks in the construction, and thus determine the region’s tolerance of the pressure caused by the construction of the dam.
• When constructing any dam, a lake is required to be built behind it, it is emptied and filled at intervals, which may result in induced earthquakes not exceeding two degrees on the Richter scale.
• It is natural that when constructing any dam, a seismic monitoring network is established around it to monitor the filling and emptying of the lake, to see if earthquakes cause damage to the dam body or not.
• The body of the dam may be affected by severe earthquakes if it is close to the epicenter of the earthquake or closely connected to the rocks that carry the dam.
• Dams in Turkey were built according to the seismic building code, because Turkey is one of the countries that have been using the seismic building code for a long time.
• As for the recent earthquake, its high strength represents a danger to the body of the dams, if the seismic building code is not up to date to bear this force.
Billion losses
With regard to the impact of the earthquake on the economy in general, economists expected that economic growth in Turkey would be affected this year, as a result of the repercussions of the earthquake, which would add billions of dollars of spending to Ankara’s budget and reduce economic growth by two percentage points this year.
This is due to the government having to undertake massive reconstruction efforts after thousands of buildings, including homes and hospitals, as well as roads, pipelines and other infrastructure, were demolished.
It is also expected that production in the affected areas, which represent 9.3 percent of Turkey’s GDP, will decline. Data from the Energy Exchange in Istanbul showed a decline in electricity use in Turkey by 11 percent on Monday compared to the previous week, reflecting the impact on consumption.
