May 12, 1971 Earthquake: Burdur, Turkey

100 killed, many injured and major damage in Burdur area (reference #1053)

57 deaths (reference #1138 , #1250, #1251)

After a first tremor on 8 March felt in the region of Tefenni (Burdur province), one of the most destructive earthquakes of 1971 occurred on 12 May at 06.25 h, causing considerable damage in the region of Burdur; according to an official report, 56 persons were killed and 150 injured; in the town of Burdur, more than 70 per cent of the houses were damaged or destroyed; in the neighbouring villages, where there was also considerable damage, most of the victims were women or children, since the men were working in the fields at the time the earthquake occurred. The macroseismic area (about 410,000 km'') included some islands in the Aegean Sea (Khios, Rhodes, Lesvos and Samos). A large number of aftershocks of this earthquake were recorded; NOS and the Bureau Central International de Seismologie located 42 epicentres in the Burdur region during the months of May and June; five of these aftershocks had magnitudes between 5 and 5.7. The Kandilli Observatory at Istanbul, for its part, has published the co-ordinates of 189 epicentres of earthquakes which occurred in the area between 12 and 31 May. The epicentral region, which is well known for its seismic activity (refertence #1039)