Two major cracks opened in the earth’s crust near the Turkish-Syrian border after two powerful earthquakes shook the region on Monday, February 6th, killing more than 20,000 people. Researchers at the UK’s Center for Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonic Observations and Modeling (COMET) discovered the ruptures by comparing before and after images of a region of the Mediterranean coast by the European Earth observation satellite Sentinel-1. devastating earthquakes.

The longer of the two rifts stretches 190 miles (300 kilometers) from the northeastern tip of the Mediterranean Sea in a northeasterly direction. The fissure was caused by the larger 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck at 04:17 am (February 5, 20:17 ET), the first of two strong tremors to hit the area on Monday. A second crack, 80 miles (125 km) long, opened about nine hours later during a second slightly milder 7.5 magnitude aftershock. COMET said in a tweet Friday (February 10).

Professor Tim Wright, who leads the COMET team, told Space.com in an email that such ruptures typically occur after major earthquakes. But these two cracks are extremely long and show the enormous amount of energy released by earthquakes.

“The stronger the earthquake, the larger the fault and the more it slides,” Wright wrote. “This rift is one of the longest rifts ever observed on continents. It is also very unusual to have two earthquakes this strong within a few hours of each other.”

The movement of the tectonic plates that caused the earthquakes was such that cracks running through cities and in some cases directly through buildings were clearly visible on the surface.

“We rarely predict possible horizontal displacements up to 5 meters [16 футів]COMET researcher Milan Lazeki told Space.com in an email. “Indeed, such large displacements of land cannot be noticed by people living in these areas.”

Local scientists shared photos of surface cracks from twitterconfirmed which satellites were observed from space.

This area in northern Cyprus is prone to severe earthquakes because three tectonic plates – Anatolian, Arabian and African – collide here and create pressure as they collide with each other. However, according to experts, Monday’s earthquakes drew attention with their brutality and devastating effects.

More than 20,000 people have been reported dead, and many victims are likely still buried under the rubble, as rescue operations have progressed slowly, particularly on the Syrian side devastated by years of armed conflict. Since the earthquake, satellites operated by private companies as well as government agencies have been assessing damage. according to NASA, earthquakes erupted along a fault line 11 miles (18 km) below the surface. NASA said in a statement that such a shallow depth means that the tremors were propagated with tremendous force, radiating hundreds of miles from the epicenter.

“These were very large and powerful earthquakes that broke up to the surface along a long series of fault segments,” said Eric Fielding, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Said. “It caused extremely strong shaking that affected many cities and towns filled with people over a very large area. The length of the rupture and the magnitude of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake were similar to the 1906 earthquake that destroyed San Francisco.”

In the Turkish cities of Türkoğlu, Kahramanmaraş and Nurdağı, thousands of buildings were destroyed, residents buried and thousands left homeless.