The US Aviation and Space Administration (NASA) shared the report of the damage caused by the 7.7 and 7.5 earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş. The report shows the damage in Kahramanmaraş, its district Türkoğlu and Gaziantep Nurdağı on the map.
Geophysicist Eric Fielding, who made a statement from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, stated that the earthquakes were very large and powerful, and that they created a great shaking in many cities and districts. Fielding reported that they compared the first earthquake in Kahramanmaraş to the earthquake that destroyed the city of San Francisco in 1906.
Damage map shared by NASA
The shared map includes parts of Kahramanmaraş, Türkoğlu district and Gaziantep Nurdağı. Dark red dots reveal heavy damage to buildings and infrastructure and possible changes in the appearance of the area. On the other hand, the orange and yellow parts show moderately and partially damaged areas. It is stated that each point corresponds to an area of approximately 30 meters.
NASA reported that the map was created through data collected by PALSAR-2 aboard the ALOS-2 satellite on February 8, 2023. The scientists compared the data from February 8 with observations they made earlier (April 7, 2021 and April 6, 2022) and detected changes and identified damaged areas.
In addition, NASA administrator Shanna McClain stated that they are closely monitoring the event and will try to map the damage via satellites as much as possible. It was stated that updates will be made as new data becomes available, while it is stated that they will use satellites to monitor landslide risks, power outages and weather conditions that may cause difficulties for response efforts.
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