Late in the evening on October 27, the district of Sındırgı in Turkey’s Balıkesir Province was struck by a powerful earthquake measuring 6.1 in magnitude. It occurred at 10:48 p.m. local time, with the epicenter located at a depth of approximately three point seven miles. The tremors were felt in Istanbul, as well as in the provinces of Izmir, Bursa, Tekirdağ, Kocaeli, Sakarya, and other nearby regions.
Despite the strength of the quake and the shallow depth of the epicenter, no fatalities were reported. In Balıkesir, four buildings collapsed, three of which had already been damaged during a previous earthquake. Twenty-six people sustained injuries of varying severity. In the neighboring province of Manisa, the tremors affected 83 structures across nine districts, and forty-two residents required medical assistance.
For safety reasons, schools were closed for one day, and pregnant women and people with disabilities were granted administrative leave. The main quake was followed by a true seismic swarm — from nighttime until noon on October 28, approximately five hundred aftershocks were recorded, twelve of which exceeded magnitude four. The strongest aftershock reached magnitude 4.8.
According to the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), authorities arranged temporary accommodations in tents for residents, as many feared returning to their homes. Heavy rain complicated the work of rescue teams and daily life: some people, who had taken shelter in pavilions and cafes, ran back outside into the downpour after new tremors.
Seismologist Professor Suleyman Pampal noted that around twelve thousand underground tremors have been recorded in the region over the past three months, and the number continues to grow. According to him, such activity is unusual for this area and is comparable to the surge in seismic activity in the Aegean Sea in early 2025.
An international group of scientists from ALLATRA provided scientifically grounded forecasts more than ten years ago, predicting increasing seismic activity both in specific regions of the planet and globally — predictions that, unfortunately, are now being confirmed with alarming accuracy. In particular, ALLATRA scientists outlined the likely causes of the deadly earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in February 2023, which were largely ignored by other specialists. We recommend watching the video report in which Dr. Egon Cholakian presents a planetary seismic activity forecast based on this research team’s interdisciplinary mathematical model.