A Major earthquake will strike Istanbul with just a few seconds notice, scientists have warned. They believe a quake with a “magnitude of 7 or greater” is long overdue. The latest devastating European earthquake reached 6.2 on the Richter scale when it struck in December last year, killing 159. But now a team led by Marco Bohnhoff from the GFZ German Research

Centre for Geoscience has found that a larger earthquake will hit Istanbul’s eastern Marmara Sea. This would place the epicenter at the gates of the city, giving people little time to find protection. Bohnhoff said: “This is both good news and bad news for the city with over 15 million inhabitants. “The rupture propagation will then run eastwards (away from the city).” That means the quake would trigger less powerful ground movements than initially predicted. READ MORE