# Talk:1992 Erzincan earthquake

This review is transcluded from Talk:1992 Erzincan earthquake/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Nominator: SamBroGaming (talk · contribs) 09:20, 25 June 2025 (UTC)
Reviewer: Hurricanehink (talk · contribs) 04:06, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the link at the very top, I don't think anyone will get confused for the 1939 earthquake, especially since you already link it in the article. So I don't think the dab link up top is needed
Removed.
"On 13 March 1992, a moment magnitude 6.6–6.7 earthquake struck eastern Turkey near Erzincan causing devastation near the epicenter." - that's a lot for the first sentence, but I think it could start out even stronger. Check out the FA 1995 Aigio earthquake, which starts out with introducing the earthquake and the general area, and then the second sentence can talk about the strength. Be sure to link earthquake too.
Done.
Be sure to link 1 in 475 year
Done.
"Strong shaking in Erzincan lasted 20 seconds" - the infobox say 5-6 seconds, so why the discrepancy?
Infobox says 6-7 seconds as that's the duration of the rupture itself. Shaking in Erzincan lasted 20 seconds, which is correlated with but not inherently the same as rupture duration. Soil and sediment patterns can propapate seismic waves even when the rupture has concluded. I checked infobox earthquake and it's not specified whether duration refers to rupture or shaking. Let me know if you want me to handle it differently.
That makes sense. Could you maybe explain why that's the case? I don't think I knew that about earthquakes. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
Done. SamBroGaming (talk) 07:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
"2 days after the mainshock" - numbers ten and under should be spelled out.
Done.
Could you expand the lead a bit so the first paragraph describes the earthquake, the region, the mechanics, and the aftershock, then the second paragraph describe the impacts?
Done.
"and an unknown number of people went missing." - is this necessary?
Removed.
"Total financial losses were around $500 million – $1.5 billion (in 1992 USD)." - is this a range, or two different damage totals?
Two different totals. Let me know how to resolve that, as I do struggle to provide the correct amount of context without talking too much sometimes.
Could say "at least $500 million, with estimates as high as $1.5 billion." You could also make a note that "all damage totals are in 1992 USD." That makes me wonder, are there any estimates in Turkish lira? It's OK if not. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
Adjusted to be better phrased. I couldn't find any reliable sources with damages in Lira. SamBroGaming (talk) 07:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
"Deformation from is accommodated through three main faults: the eastern portion of the Hellenic Trench accommodates convergence between the Aegean Sea plate and the Anatolian Plate in the south, the North Anatolian Fault in the north, along which this earthquake occurred, accommodates the deformation between the Anatolian Plate and the Eurasian plate which forces the Anatolian west, and the East Anatolian Fault in the east accommodates the same deformation." - can this be split into a few sentences? Also in the first sentence, is there a typo? What does this mean? Can you link deformation?
Resolved typo, rewrote, added wikilink.
"The Erzincan basin" - this links to a random city. Is that really what the basin is, when it comes to earthquakes?
Switched wikilink to be more accurate.
Maybe that link should be for "basin", and not the whole thing, since the article doesn't specifically mention the Erzincan or any other basin. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
Valid criticism, changed. SamBroGaming (talk) 07:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
Shouldn't the "Earthquake" section begin by saying when the earthquake happened? Maybe mention sensors registering it too. The infobox has an exact time that needs a reference (both citation and mention) somewhere.
Added when the earthquake happened with citation. It's challenging to add when sensors registered it as sources don't really give a specific timing for that, just occasional intensity or acceleration readouts.
Makes sense, that's perfect what you added. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
"2.71 m (8 ft 11 in)." - you should convert the feet to something like 8.9 ft, not use inches and feet.
Changed conversion.
"In the northwest, rupture terminated where the 1939 earthquake released a lot of strain" - no need to link the 1939 earthquake again here
Removed.
A lot of the earthquake section feels a bit jargon heavy. It's comprehensible, but a bit on the difficult to understand side without clicking a bunch of links.
I've left it untouched for now, let me know if it needs anything specific to be revised. I tried to balance detail with understanding by using wikilinks.
"The maximum MSK-64 intensity was evaluated at IX (Destructive) with a recorded peak ground acceleration of 0.5 g and peak ground velocity of 105 cm/s (41 in/s)." - this part seems like two different thoughts. The MSK intensity is already one rabbit hole, but I get it, there are different scales for earthquake intensity. The last part though seems like some good, measurable data, with measuring the intensity. I'm guessing 0.5 g is... gravity? But I don't know, and that unit isn't linked. Also, the ground velocity, was that measured? I guess I'm expecting more about seismographs in the region, or something. You link "peak ground velocity", but the closest I got to understanding how that's relevant is "After many years of trying every possible manipulation of accelerometer-time histories, it turns out that the extremely simple peak ground velocity (PGV) provides the best correlation with damage.[1][2] PGV merely expresses the peak of the first integration of the acceleration record." So I'm close, but a bit more explanation would go a long way to making the article more understandable. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
Separated intensity from ground motion and added MMI while I was at it. g is gravity so wikilinked to g-force, and pgv redirects to strong ground motion which does a horrendous job of explaining pgv. pgv is just the maximum velocity at which the ground moves from an earthquake.... I have no clue why the strong ground motion article is convoluted and doesn't reflect that. Regardless, I added a bit of an explainer for both pga and pgv to hopefully reduce confusion. SamBroGaming (talk) 07:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
You link both "stress drop" and "stress shadow". Are there any other places you could link both of these nonexistent articles?
I have not found suitable other articles on either topic, and I think those both have notability and should become full fledged articles at some point. They are relatively important seismic concepts.
Then can you explain each topic when you link them? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
Done. SamBroGaming (talk) 07:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
"The earthquake left 498–950 people killed, 2,800 injured, collapsed 150 buildings and damaged over 11,000 homes, with 2,200 heavily damaged in Erzincan alone" - few things. First, that's a big of death toll range. 1992 is recent enough that you can probably get news sources from that year. Have you tried any newspaper archives? Next, this is a huge info dump, and each of these parts can be their own sentence. When did the search and rescue mission stops? Did any notable buildings collapse or get damaged? I'd say the later part when you say "the three largest hotels completely collapsed" should be mentioned when you say that 150 buildings collapsed.
Surprisingly, there are very few news articles on this earthquake, especially in English. The only one I found was a NYTimes reporting 2 days after the fact, which had the death toll at "more than 600". It does have other useful info that I had not seen so I have expanded aftermath a bit (warrants taking a look to make sure I didn't add more mistakes with it lol). I switched the order for the hospital sentence to be after the buildings collapsing. Broke up the sentence into multiple as well. Added bit about when SAR missions ended.
Much appreciated here! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
"The Erzincan Airport was unaffected." - typically, articles don't say when things don't happen. But I'm guessing no flights were delayed or cancelled then?
Source says "Airport runways and taxiways were undamaged and remained functional." I didn't have enough info to add more context without OR.
But my point is, should this bit of information even be included? You don't need to indicate every bit of infrastructure that did not sustain damage. Unless somehow you incorporate this into the aftermath, like if missions were done from the airport, you could say "Search and rescue missions were conducted from Erzincan Airport, which was unaffected by the earthquake." That would give better context for why it's worth including. But as of now, I don't think it's needed. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
Removed. SamBroGaming (talk) 07:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
"500,000 kilograms of food "-  can you convert to pounds?
Done.
"The provision of housing built following the earthquake is now listed by the Chamber of Civil Engineers in Turkey as one of the Fifty civil engineering feats in Turkey." - this seems interesting, and the link for the 50 civil engineering feats mentions emergency housing. How many houses were built?
Information on this is so incredibly challenging to find that I believe I have exhausted every available source on the English speaking internet. I even tried to translate Turkish, but I would need someone truly proficient in Turkish to take a look and add that. I wish I had more info to add as well.
Was there any state of emergency or disaster declaration?
I can not find any information on that one way or another.
The article is in pretty good shape, so hopefully none of these comments are too difficult to address. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  04:06, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
@Hurricanehink: I have fixed 90% of what you pointed out and asked for clarification on the rest. I will say this seems much more like an in depth review more reminiscent of my time at FAC with the aforementioned 1995 Aigio earthquake than a GAN, but it certainly is helping make the article pretty damn good, so thanks. Let me know what else needs to be done! SamBroGaming (talk) 22:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for all of the fixes! Just a few follow up comments that I think/hope will be easy. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)  19:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
@Hurricanehink: Completed! SamBroGaming (talk) 07:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)