2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes in the context of Gaziantep

Kahramanmaraş Province (Turkish: Kahramanmaraş ili) is a province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey. Its area is 14,520 km, and its population is 1,177,436 (2022). Its provincial capital is the city of Kahramanmaraş, and the traffic code is 46. In 2023, Its Pazarcık and Elbistan districts were home to the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes causing major damage to the city with 50K+ deaths.

The Anatolian plate is a continental tectonic plate lying under Asiatic part of Turkey, known as Anatolia. Most of the country of Turkey is located on the Anatolian plate. The plate is separated from the Eurasian plate and the Arabian plate by the North Anatolian Fault and the East Anatolian Fault respectively. According to the American Museum of Natural History, the Anatolian transform fault system is "probably the most active in the world".

Most significant earthquakes in the region have historically occurred along the northern fault, such as the 1939 Erzincan earthquake. The northern edge is a transform boundary with the Eurasian plate, forming the North Anatolian Fault zone (NAFZ). The East Anatolian Fault, a left lateral transform fault, forms a boundary with the Arabian plate. The devastating 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes occurred along the active East Anatolian Fault at a strike-slip fault where the Arabian plate is sliding past the Anatolian plate horizontally.

Kahramanmaraş (Turkish pronunciation: [kahɾaˈmanmaɾaʃ]), historically Marash (Turkish: Maraş; Armenian: Մարաշ) and Germanicea (Greek: Γερμανίκεια), is a city in the Mediterranean region of Turkey and the administrative centre of Kahramanmaraş province. After 1973, Maraş was officially named Kahramanmaraş with the prefix kahraman (Turkish word meaning "heroic") to commemorate the Battle of Marash. The city lies on a plain at the foot of Mount Ahır.

On 6 February 2023, much of the city was destroyed in the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes which had their epicentre in Pazarcık and Elbistan in Kahramanmaraş province.

The Federation of Caucasian Associations (Adyghe: Кавказ Хасэхэм я Федерацие; Turkish: Kafkas Dernekleri Federasyonu) or KAFFED is the largest Circassian association in Turkey and is a union of Circassian and other North Caucasian associations from various provinces of Turkey. The Federation describes itself as "criticizing Russia's authoritarian attitude that ignores the existence and rights of the North Caucasian peoples". The KAFFED Chairman has been banned from entering the Russian Federation. KAFFED was the founding member of the International Circassian Association (ICA) until it left in 2022 due to "ICA acting as a Russian puppet organisation".

KAFFED organizes Circassian Genocide commemoration events every year. After the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes, they coordinated with the Circassian associations in the region and provided assistance.

An earthquake struck Turkey's eastern Erzincan Province at 1:57:23 a.m. on 27 December 1939 local time with a moment magnitude (M_w ) of 7.8 and maximum Mercalli intensity of XII (Extreme). It is tied with the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes as the most powerful earthquake in Turkey to be recorded by instruments. However, it was less powerful than estimates of the 1668 North Anatolia earthquake. This was one of the largest in a sequence of violent shocks to affect Turkey along the North Anatolian Fault between 1939 and 1999. Surface rupturing, with a horizontal displacement of up to 3.7 meters, occurred in a 360 km long segment of the North Anatolian Fault Zone. The earthquake was the most severe natural loss of life in Turkey in the 20th century, with 32,968 dead, and some 100,000 injured.

2023 (MMXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2023rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 23rd year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 4th year of the 2020s decade.

Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lasting recorded tropical cyclone in history in the Indian Ocean, which led to over 1,400 deaths in Malawi and Mozambique; Storm Daniel, which became the deadliest tropical cyclone worldwide since Typhoon Haiyan after killing at least 5,300 people in Libya; a major 6.8 magnitude earthquake striking western Morocco, killing 2,960 people; and a 6.3 magnitude quadruple earthquake striking western Afghanistan, killing over 1,400 people. The year also saw a decline in the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the WHO (World Health Organization) ending its global health emergency status in May.

This article provides a list of aftershocks of intensity VI (Strong) or higher of the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes. The area has experienced more than 40 such aftershocks.