evidence: Reflections on the Turkish-Syrian Earthquakes of 6th February 2023: Building Collapse and its Consequences [...] An interesting map was published by the US Geological Survey shortly after the Turkish-Syrian earthquakes.1 It showed (perhaps somewhat predictively) that there was only one tiny square of the vast affected area in which Modified Mercalli intensity (which is largely a measure of damage) reached 9.0, the ‘violent’ level.2 This is–just about–enough to damage very significantly a well-engineered structure (but not necessarily enough to bring it crashing down). Although the disaster of 6th February 2023 produced, in fact, stronger shaking than this, it should not have caused 5,500 large buildings to collapse. The disaster in Turkey and Syria is very obviously the result of poor construction. This is painfully visible in the video images of buildings collapsing. The patterns of collapse are also the same as those in the last 20 Turkish earthquakes, although they are doubtless more extensive this time around.