Characteristics of strong ground motions and structural damage patterns from the February 6th, 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes, Türkiye

On February 6th, 2023, two severe earthquakes struck southeastern Türkiye near the Syrian border. The first earthquake, Mw7.8, occurred at 04:17 local time in the East Anatolian Fault Zone near the city of Gaziantep. The second earthquake, Mw7.5, occurred approximately 9 h later at 13:24 local time near Elbistan County, in Kahramanmaraş province. These seismic events ruptured multiple segments of the East Anatolian Fault Zone (EAFZ), with rupture lengths exceeding 300 km, and deformation exceeding 5 m on both sides of the faults. In this study, we aim to analyze characteristics of the strong ground motion induced by the mainshocks, focusing on ground motion intensity measures such as the peak ground acceleration (PGA), the peak ground velocity (PGV), and the pseudo-acceleration response spectra (PSA). The first earthquake produced extremely high PGA values in both horizontal (> 2 g) and vertical (> 1 g) components. At near field distances, large PGVs are measured (> 180 cm/s) with more than 30 impulsive motions which may indicate source-related effects. Large spectral demands are also recorded for both earthquakes, partially underestimated by Ground Motion Models (GMMs), especially in the near-field. Specifically, we compare the PSA for horizontal directions with the design spectra provided by both the new and previous Turkish building codes. We also present building and ground damage observations that provide insights into the observed ground motions in the heavily damaged areas.