Expert blames 'pancake' collapses for Turkey quake carnage

[...]

Shiomitsu notes that the quake generated severe shaking equivalent to a seismic intensity of 7 on Japan's seismic intensity scale of zero to 7 in Hassa, Hatay region, about 60 kilometers southwest of the epicenter.

In recent decades, three quakes in Japan have generated the same seismic intensity: the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, and the Kumamoto Earthquake in 2016. All three caused catastrophic damage.

Shiomitsu also reports that during the Turkey earthquake, shaking equivalent to a Japanese scale upper and lower 6 extended to a range of about 160 kilometers from the epicenter.

He warns that tremors of that size could cause serious damage to relatively large structures, such as middle-rise buildings in Japan. "It's believed that very powerful tremors with an intensity of upper 6 to 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, which can cause severe damage to buildings in Japan, were the reason for the extensive damage, but we need to confirm this."