After the Earthquake, Train Tracks Became This Way

Kahramanmaraş-centered earthquakes also damaged the railways. The train tracks on the active fault line were bent and became unusable.

The train tracks between Kahramanmaraş's Türkoğlu district and Gaziantep's İslahiye district were bent by the impact of earthquakes affecting 10 provinces.

The guest of the TRT Haber broadcast, Prof. Dr. Erhan Altunel evaluated the condition of the rails.

“Investigations should be made before the works on the active fault”

Stating that the rails were laid randomly on the trace of the fault on the surface, Prof. Dr. Altunel said, “For example, when oil and natural gas pipelines have to cross active faults in this way, these faults are examined in detail there. Since these rails were laid in ancient times, people did not know what kind of things this surface fracture could cause. “This is a randomly laid railway without any engineering calculations,” he said.

Earthquake caused train tracks to bend

Pointing out that the rails, which are not damaged even though tons of loads pass over them, are bent, Altunel said, “The situation on the train tracks indicates the energy released. Along a plane 250 kilometers long and approximately 10 kilometers deep, the blocks on both sides move in opposite directions. This is a huge power. Naturally, such shifts are experienced in engineering structures built on faults," he said.