Is a big earthquake expected in Western Thrace?
Severe earthquakes many times in the history of Türkiye have caused permanent effects on both physical, historical, and psychological structure. The Republic of Türkiye has been shaken by many earthquakes in its history, especially the Great Anatolian Earthquake in the 17th century, the Erzincan Earthquake in 1939, the Gölcük Earthquake in 1999, and the Kahramanmaraş Earthquake that occurred twice in a row earlier this week.
Nor is there any place in the territory of today's Greece that is almost without fault lines. However, the fault lines in Greece, unlike those in Türkiye, do not pose a serious threat to cause thousands of deaths. For example, in 1999, only three weeks after the 17 August Gölcük Earthquake, the earthquake that occurred on September 7, 1999 in Athens, Parnitha, was recorded as the worst destruction of Greece in the last 50 years, and only 147 lives were lost.
However, this does not mean that there are never very severe earthquakes in Greece. Major earthquakes have also been seen in the history of Greece, although they do not occur every few decades like in Türkiye.
Some of them directly affected Western Thrace. First, in 1752, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5, the epicenter of which was close to Kumçiftliği (Orestiada), affected the region tremendously and caused the death of 100 people under the conditions of that period. In 1893, the earthquake that occurred on the island of Samothrace caused a tsunami of 5 meters on the island and 1 meter on the coast of Alexandroupoli and went down in history as the first tsunami in Aegean. Since this 6.8 magnitude earthquake occurred on an island, only one person died.
The most well-known among these is the earthquake of 1829, the epicenter of which was Drama, but known as Xanthi Earthquake because it seriously affected Xanthi. Tobacco trade continued until today in Xanthi, which was an important commercial city in the Ottoman lands of the period, was an important production source both for the region and the Ottoman Empire. However, in 1829, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 caused Xanthi and Drama to be almost completely destroyed, and Kavala to be severely damaged.
After this date, the city moved from Xanthi to Yenice, which is known as a village today. According to some sources, Xanthi's name in Turkish, İskeçe, comes from Eskice (Old City), thus represents the old city and Yenice (New City) represents the new city built after the earthquake. However, after the great fire in Yenice in 1870, the city was moved to Xanthi again. As a matter of fact, the construction of houses dating back to the Ottoman period in the region known as the Old City in Xanthi today dates back to the aftermath of the 29 earthquake.
In the historical records, apart from these three major earthquakes, there is no other earthquake that directly affected the Western Thrace region. Therefore, geologists state that it is not possible to predict exactly when an earthquake will occur in this region, since there is no earthquake that occurs at regular intervals, on average, once every 30 years, as in the Marmara region. In connection with this, Aristotle University Professor Spyros Pavlidis emphasized that Thrace is not an aseismic region, but a region where earthquakes rarely occur.
After all, the Western Thrace region, when the entire map of Greece is revealed, appears as a region where the least and the smallest earthquakes occurred after the 1900s. However, it should not be forgotten that the North Anatolian Fault line, which will cause the Istanbul earthquake, which is expected to occur until 2030, extends to the North of the Aegean, and a relatively ineffective fault line passes just below Western Thrace. Therefore, although there is no need to spend a lifetime worrying about an earthquake, it should be remembered that there is always the possibility of an earthquake.
