Turkey sits on the North Anatolian fault line, one of the world’s well-known earthquake zones. History shows that earthquakes have struck at random over the centuries with the last occurring in 1999 in the industrial town of Izmit, 100 km east of Istanbul. The net result of this devastating quake , which measured 7.4 on the Richter scale and lasted for a mere 45 seconds was that 17,000 people were killed – unofficial estimates put the number closer to 35,000 and 300,000 were left homeless. As a result the Turkish government put a series of measures into place to ensure that as many homes as possible would from then on in be earthquake resistant.