A leading Turkish seismologist has said that the intense sequence of earthquakes that struck the northwestern province of Balıkesir’s Sındırgı district has effectively come to an end, following months of sustained seismic activity described as a “seismic storm.”
Hasan Sözbilir, the director of Dokuz Eylül University’s earthquake research center, stated that stress accumulation along the ruptured fault segments has been fully released. “We can now say that seismic activity in Sındırgı has ceased. There is no longer significant stress build-up in the broken fault segments; the energy has been discharged,” he said.
The assessment follows two magnitude 6.1 earthquakes that struck the district on Aug. 10 and Oct. 27 last year, triggering a prolonged period of aftershocks. More than 26,000 earthquakes have been recorded in the region since August 2025, many exceeding 4.0 magnitude.
Field studies combining geological observations, geodetic measurements and geophysical analysis identified five interconnected fault segments along the Emendere Fault Zone as the primary source of the seismic activity.
Researchers also detected a ground subsidence of approximately 20 centimeters in the mountainous terrain.
While activity in Sındırgı has subsided, Sözbilir cautioned that stress transfer has increased along neighboring fault lines to the northwest and southeast, including areas near Balıkesir in the Gelenbe Fault Line, in close proximity to Gördes and Demirci districts in the neighboring Manisa province. He noted that seismic activity appears to be migrating toward these areas.
Daily tremors have significantly decreased in recent weeks, now limited to one or two minor events every few days. The study also concluded that the earthquakes in Sındırgı were geothermal in origin.
