Butterfly Effect of Natural Disasters on the Economy: The Case of the 2011 Van Earthquake

Natural disasters and earthquakes cause unexpected events and changes in the social and economic lives of societies. The two earthquakes that occurred consecutively in 2011 in Van affected the social and economic life of the province. The objective of this study is to define the changes in the economy of the province after the earthquakes and to explain the unexpected changes by the concept of The Butterfly Effect. This study is data analysis research. The study explores the changes after the 2011 earthquakes over the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data between 2005 and 2017 of the Van province. Although a drop in the economic size of Van occurred because of the earthquakes, the following four years showed an unexpected growth of 3.6 times. While the research on this field notes that the effects of natural disasters may be negative or positive, our study consist an example that natural disasters may trigger a positive Butterfly Effect on the economy of a city.