I was a tourist today...saw Blue Mosque in Istanbul, among other things. It has 6 minarrettes (sp?)....skinny tower things. It is also old..I have to check, but the "New Mosque" is 500 yrs old. Istanbul is full of minarrettes. It would not take much shaking to knock these down. California has precarious balancing rocks (Jim Brune's work)...that would not take much skaking at all to knock down. These are not present very close to the major strike-slip faults...but you don't have to go too terribly far away (10 or 20 km??). So, certain areas that are a little ways away from strike-slip faults may do pretty well in big quakes. From some people I talked to and looking at the topography, much of Istanbul is a sort of elevated surface of 100 or 200 m...not a sedimentary basin. It is an area a little farther west by the Marmara Sea where 2000 people were killed from the distant 1999 Izmit quake...bad site conditions (together with bad construction). I was shown data that imaged the main active strand of North Anatolia fault, at least in one area, is not vertical...it dips away from Istanbul, and has normal-separation. Perhaps ground motion is partly directed away? Not my expertise. Some time ago in US I heard some bad number for potential fatalities of such a quake...but maybe it will not be so bad? (I don't know about west part Istanbul...).
Chris