## 2 6 February 2023 Kahramanmaras (Turkiye) Earthquakes  
When the tectonic system in Turkiye is examined, it can be seen that the Arabian Plate moves to the north the Eurasian Plate compresses Eastern Anatolia, and the Anatolian Plate is affected by the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) and Eastern Anatolian Fault (EAF) formed after the resistance of the Eurasian Plate in the north. It is seen that it moves westward (Figure 1). The EAF, with an average length of 580 km, is one of the most seismically active regions of Turkiye and many major earthquakes have occurred along this fault zone. The EAF is a left-lateral strike-slip fault that forms the southeast border of the Anatolian plate and intersects the NAF at Karhova. Similarly, EAF merges with the Dead Sea Fault (DSF) around Antakya [44; 45; 46; 47; 48]. The North and East Anatolian Faults (NAF and EAF) have caused thousands of people to die in the last 150 years, with earthquakes of more than 7 magnitudes they have produced. In short, the earthquake activity in and around Turkiye is directly related to the complex plate tectonics that continues between the Eurasian, Arabian, and African plates. Firstly, an earthquake happened on 6 February 2023, at 04:17 local time, with a magnitude of M\({}_{\rm w}\) = 7.7 in Kahramanmaras (Pazarcik). After 9 h, at 13:24, an earthquake happened with a magnitude of M\({}_{\rm w}\) = 7.6, where the epicentre was the Kahramanmaras (Elbistan). Another earthquake with a magnitude of M\({}_{\rm w}\) = 6.4 happened in H  
Figure 1: Simplified tectonic map of Turkiye [49]. (The yellow star is the epicentre of the Pazarcik earthquake and blue star is the epicentre of the Elbistan earthquake). 20 February 2023, at 20:04 local time. Approximately 14% of the country's land area has seen severe destruction as a result of these earthquakes. In terms of severity and geographic coverage, these earthquakes are the worst recent disasters ever in Turkiye. More than 50,000 people died and more than 500,000 buildings were damaged as a result of these earthquakes. The communication and energy infrastructures were also damaged and created significant economic losses for the country. The second earthquake's focal depth is 7 km, compared to the previous earthquake's focal depth of 8.6 km. Since both of the earthquakes are very close to the surface and in terms of time interval, consecutive earthquakes have affected the damage levels very significantly. The earthquake region is shown in Figure 2.  
Spectral acceleration values were compared for Kahramanmaras province, which is the epicentre of both earthquakes. The spectral accelerations that were recorded at strong ground motion stations in 17 different locations in the province are shown in Figure 3 according to different local soil classes. In the Turkiye building earthquake code, six different local soil classes are expressed as ZA, ZB, ZC, ZD, ZE, and ZF. Soil properties weaken as one goes from ZA to ZF. Accordingly, for all soil types at seven locations, the projected acceleration values were surpassed. In ZC and ZD soil types, the number of stations exceeding the expected acceleration value was 10. The second earthquake M\({}_{\rm w}\) = 7.6 magnitude, which happened 9 h after the first earthquake, was recorded in a smaller number of strong ground motion stations located in 11 different locations in Kahramanmaras than the previous earthquake, probably due to its further distance. Spectral accelerations obtained from the acceleration values are shown in Figure 4 according to different local soil classes. Accordingly, the expected acceleration values were exceeded for all local soil classes at one station. In ZC and ZD soil types, the number of stations whose acceleration value exceeded the expected acceleration value was 2. Figure 2: Epicentres and cities affected by earthquakes.