Significant earthquakes of 1912

August 9, 1912 Earthquake: Marmara Sea, Turkey

August 9, 1912 · M7.2 · 2,800 deaths · 24,700 houses destroyed

A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Marmara Sea, Turkey on August 9, 1912 at 01:29:02 UTC, 15 km below the surface. It killed 2,800 people.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date
August 9, 1912
Time
01:29:02 UTC
Place
Marmara Sea, Turkey
Magnitude
7.2 (Mw)
Magnitude scales
Mw 7.2 · Unspecified 7.8
Focal depth
15 km (9 mi)
Epicenter
40.730° N, 27.121° E
Country
Turkey
Region
Middle East

Mw: moment magnitude, based on the slip on the fault and the area that slipped. Unspecified: the method was not stated in the published sources. NCEI’s headline magnitude is the best of these for the earthquake.

The toll

Deaths
2,800
Injuries
7,000
Damage
Extreme (about $25 million or more)
Houses destroyed
24,700
Houses damaged
15,400

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

From Wikipedia

The 1912 Mürefte earthquake occurred at 03:29 local time on 9 August. It had an estimated magnitude of 7.4 Mw and a maximum intensity of X (Extreme) on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale, causing from 216 to 3,000 casualties.

Text from Wikipedia, “1912 Mürefte earthquake”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Quoted as written; the full article has the rest.

Wikidata records: 2,800 deaths and 7,000 injured. These are counts entered by Wikidata’s editors; they may differ from the official count, and this page never adds them to another figure. Q4559501, CC0.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

1912, August 9, 03h30m. Zone of the Sea of Marmara. A catastrophic earthquake occurred with its centre at the base of the Gallipoli Peninsula. According to field observations and to interpreted satellite photographs, a right-hand shear fault took place over 3 m in size along the diagonal fault extending from the apex of the Gulf of Saros at an azimuth of 65" through the base of the Gallipoli Peninsula towards the point of Gazikoy (Ganos - ref) on the coast of the Sea of Marmara and farther, apparently, continuing on the sea -bottom. The length of the ground part of the fault is 50 km. Certain vertical movements also took place: the south-eastern block with the mountain ridge of Tekirdag rose a little, the north-western block sank. A complex system of ruptures was formed at the earth's surface in the zone of the fault the width of which amounted to 5 km. Numerous rockfalls, screes, collapses, changes in the conditions of ground and underground water, cracking of the earth, the dilution of coastal marine and lacustrine sediments. Mud with oil was thrown out of some fissures, bitumen was extruded and so on. The earthquake lasted 40 s within the focal zone, and over 1 min far away fiom it. 2,800 inhabitants were killed, 7,000 inhabitants were wounded, 12,600 houses were destroyed completely in more than 300 settlements, and 12,100 houses were damaged beyond repair; a further 15,400 houses were seriously damaged. 241 mosques and 72 churches were also destroyed. The cities of Istanbul, Edirne, Adapazari, Bursa, Edremit and others suffered. Minarets, mosques, orphanages, hospitals, government buildings were damaged in Istanbul; all the chimneys and part of the city walls collapsed. The effects of the earthquake in Edime were similar. The buildings with long periods of natural oscillations were the most vulnerable far away from the earthquake focus. The constructions more accurately projected and built suffered little even within the focal zone. This earthquake was the strongest in Europe (M = 7.4) at the beginning of the 20th century and was accompanied by numerous aftershocks (the strongest shock was of M = 6.6 a month later).

After the earthquake, the sea receded a certain distance from the shore along the coast of the Sea of Marmara near Tekirdug and in the straits, and then it came back with force, but did no damage. The waves were especially powerful in the southern part of the Sea of Marmara.

(above reference #2130)

The 9 August shock was felt throughout the eastern Balkan and reached Bucharest and Vienna (Macovei 1912; Mihailovic 1927; Ambraseys & Finkel, 1987). Most of the damage occurred between Canakkale and Tekirdag, but Istanbul, Edirne, Enez, Sakarya (Adapazan), Ayvahk, and Bursa also suffered from the shock. The shock killed 2,800 and injured 7000 people. Nearly 12,600 houses were totally destroyed, 12,100 beyond repair, and 15,400 were severely damaged (Ambraseys and Finkel 1987, ref #13074). (reference #13073)

1912 Aug 09, 01:29:02.06 UTC. 40.73 N 27.121 E, Mw 7.23 (reference #10476, v9.1)

Reference #1251 lists 5540 buildings damaged.

Reference #1250 lists 1575 injured.

MagnitudeDeathsReference #7.32161251 92312507.819501001, 10037.428361215 280013074 300011737.8 12267.23 10476 (v9.1)

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

  1. #130 Gutenberg, B. and C.F. Richter (1965). Seismicity of the earth and associated phenomena. Princeton University Press, 1954 (second edition); Hafner Publishing Company, New York and London (facsimile edition), 310 p.
  2. #1003 Bath, Markus (1973). Introduction to Seismology, Halsted Press, 1978.
  3. #1215 Ambraseys, N.N., R.D. Adams (1987). Seismicity of Turkey and neighbouring regions, 1899-1915. Annales Geophysicae, 5B, (6), Paris, France, p. 701-726.
  4. #1071 Ergin, Kazim, Ugur Guclu, and Zeki Uz (1967). A Catalogue of Earthquakes for Turkey and Surrounding Area (11 A.D. to 1964 A.D.). Istanbul Teknik Universities (Technical University of Istanbul), Istanbul, Turkey.
  5. #1251 Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute (2002). Large Turkish Earthquakes, Instanbul, Turkey. Retrieved February 8 from link
  6. #1004 Karnik, V. (1969). Seismicity of the European Area, Part 1, D. Riedel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, 1969. 364 p.
  7. #1250 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) (2001). EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium, link
  8. #10476 International Seismological Centre (2013). Final Scientific Report of the ISC-GEM Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue, ISC-GEM Global Instrumental earthquake Catalogue (1900-2021). Versions 1-12 downloaded beginning 18 March 2013. DOI: 10.31905/D808B825
  9. #13074 Ambraseys, N.N. and C.F. Finkel (1987). The Saros-Marmara earthquake of 9 August 1912. Earthquake Eng Struct Dynam 15:189-211. DOI: 10.1002/eqe.4290150204
  10. #2130 Soloviev, Sergey L., Olga N. Solovieva, Chan N. Go, Khen S. Kim, and Nikolay A. Shchetnikov (2000). Tsunamis in the Mediterranean Sea 2000 B.C.-2000 A.D., Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, Volume 13, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 237 p.
  11. #1173 Miyamura, S. (1988). Some Remarks on Historical Seismograms and the Microfilming Project. in Historical Seismograms and Earthquakes of the World (eds. W.H.K. Lee, H. Meyers, K. Shimazaki), Academic Press, Inc., San Diego, p. 401-419.
  12. #14000 Ambraseys, N. N., and Finkel, C. F. (1991). Long‐term seismicity of Istanbul and of the Marmara Sea region. Terra Nova, 3(5), 527-539.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

More

Significant earthquakes of 1912The 1900sEvery quake the USGS located in 1912Recent earthquakes near hereThis day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 2955. The written accounts and the magnitude estimates are from the USGS earthquake catalog, event iscgem16958205, matched to this record by time, place and magnitude.