Early Sunday morning we learned that a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey around Lake Van. Today this region is occupied mostly by Kurds, but in biblical times it was known as the land of Urartia or Ararat. The region was the area where Noah’s ark is said to have rested after the flood.
and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. (Genesis 8:4 ESV)
After the sons of Assyrian king Sennacherib killed him at Nineveh, they escaped to the land of Ararat (2 Kings 19:37; Isaiah 37:38).
The kingdom of Ararat was called to participate in the overthrow of Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27).
Several times we have written about earthquakes in the Bible, and specifically earthquakes in the eastern portion of Turkey. See here and here. We wrote about the planning done by local people for earthquakes here.
Below is another photo made in June, 2007, on the road from Van to Batman. The wooden beams you see in the wall are placed there to help absorb the shock from earthquakes.
Preparing for earthquakes in Eastern Turkey. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins 2007.
The only photos of yesterday’s earthquake damage that I have seen has been from the cities where the buildings are made of concrete. I wonder how well these country folk have fared in this earthquake.
Ferrell's Travel Blog 
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