Why do they say birds announced earthquakes in Turkey and Syria?

Following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people in Turkey and Syria, videos appeared on social media of dozens of birds allegedly flitting desperately in the skies of affected areas in the hours leading up to the quake.

In this sense, although it has not been possible to confirm whether the images correspond to moments before the earthquake, many have wondered whether animals, especially birds, they can predict catastrophes like these.

According to a report prepared by the Washington Post on the matter, there would be scientific evidence that supports the theory that some animals behave strangely before the tremors. Let’s see what two sources say.

question of waves

For him United States Geological SurveyIt concerns the perception of seismic waves. For this you must know that, when it comes to earthquakes, there are primary (P) and secondary (S) waves.

As the Post collects, the animals’ abnormal behavior before the tremors could have to do with the difference between the two types of waves.

The explanation is that P waves, the first waves emitted by an earthquake, travel kilometers per second from the epicenter and can be felt by animals like S waves, which are stronger and shake the ground in an alarming way, in this case also from ‘man.

“Very few humans notice the smaller P wave traveling faster from the source of the earthquake and arriving earlier than the larger S wave. But many animals with sharper senses can feel the P wave seconds before the S wave arrives,” a US Media Service guide said.

animals vs humans

A second source can be taken from a study prepared by the director of the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior, Martin Wikelski.

For Wikelski, animals can feel earthquakes even before they occur. “We have a very good indication that the animals are indeed sensing earthquake precursors, and it’s not seismic activity,” the researcher told the Post.

In a 2020 study, researchers attached electronic tags (like small cell phones) to cows, dogs and sheep on an Italian farm and watched their movements for months when earthquakes were detected nearby.

In this way they found that the animals were usually “superactive” and produced continuous movements of more than 45 minutes before seven or eight earthquakes in the vicinity.

The result of the study, therefore, suggested that animals can detect earthquakes potentially more than 12 hours earlier than humans and well before any quake.