Tuesday 28 August, 2001
Himalayan earthquake forecast
An international team of scientists say the Himalayan region may suffer a major earthquake in the near future, but as Science In Action reports, even with the latest scientific equipment its very difficult to say when or exactly where the earthquake will strike.
India has already suffered five major earthquakes in the last 10 years.
Earlier this year the country suffered the deadliest earthquake in it’s history in the city of Bhuj in Gujarat. Officials estimated that 10,000 people died in Bhuj alone and 95% of the city’s buildings were left uninhabitable.
Reporting now in the journal Science, researchers have warned that the region may be due for between five and eight comparable or worse earthquakes over the next 100 years.
The capital cities of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, could all be at risk and it could affect up to 50 million people.
Tectonic plates
Earthquakes happen quite frequently in South Asia, stemming from its location. The Himalayas are situated at a point where two of the Earths tectonic plates meet. These plates are huge areas of rock lying deep below the surface.
The Indian plate is continually pushing on the Eurasian plate and the Himalayan mountain range was created at a time when the plates pushed hard together, throwing up the mountains as they ruptured the Earths surface.
Current plate movements mean India is getting closer to Tibet, by around 20 millimetres every year. This might not sound like very much but the geologists say the movement creates pressure across the Himalayan region, and the only way to release this pressure is through earthquakes.
Roger Bilham, from the University of Colorado, is one of the authors of the new report. He explains how the regions history could help to predict the future:
‘India has to have these giant earthquakes in order to slip northwards; smaller events won’t do it. One of the things we can do is to look into the historic records to find out how often they occur and then predict forward to see when the next one will occur.’
Predictions and preparations
But earthquakes are not easy to predict. There have been six major Himalayan earthquakes in the past 200 years, the most recent in 1950.
According to this latest research the strain is building up; in some parts of the Himalayas there has been no release for hundreds of years, so the area could suffer its biggest ever earthquake, though equally likely is a series of smaller ones.
When earthquakes strike, one of the major problems that cities face is that they are not built to withstand such levels of violent shaking.
Whilst it is impossible to make any concrete predictions, making forecasts could save lives if people take notice and make the necessary preparations. As Roger Bilham explains:
‘The earthquakes that have occurred in India in recent decades are not as serious as the giant earthquakes that have occurred in the Himalayan region.’
| ‘Our findings about the convergence rate in India and the absence of other ways to allow the Himalayas to slip, suggest that it is probably time to take very seriously the earthquake building codes. Their implementation will reduce loss of life in future events.’ | |
Devastation
Whatever the eventual outcome the effect could be far more devastating than anything seen before, as the number of people living in the Himalayan region continues to increase.
As the scientists report:
‘The population of India has doubled since the last great Himalayan earthquake in 1950.’
‘The urban population in the Ganges plain has increased by a factor of 10 since the 1905 earthquake, when collapsing buildings killed 19,500 people.’
‘Today, about 50 million people are at risk from great Himalayan earthquakes, many of them in towns and villages in the Ganges plain.’
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| A decade of disaster |
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January 2001:
El Salvador is devastated by an earthquake measuring between 7.6 and 7.9 on the Richter scale. More than 700 people die.
An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale strikes the wealthy industrial state of Gujarat, India, flattening whole villages, toppling high-rise blocks in cities and killing an estimated 20,000 people.
November 2000:
An earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale shakes Papua New Guinea, triggering at least one tidal wave.
October 2000:
An earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, injured 30 people and damaged about 200 homes in Japan.
September 1999:
Taiwan is hit by a quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, killing nearly 2,500 people.
September 1999:
An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale hits the northern suburbs of the Greek capital Athens.
August 1999:
An earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale rocks the Turkish cities of Izmit and Istanbul, leaving more than 17,000 dead and many more injured.
March 1999:
Uttar Pradesh in northern India is hit by two earthquakes in as many days, killing more than 100.
January 1999:
A shock measuring 6.0 kills up to 1,000 in the Colombian town of Armenia.
July 1998:
More than 1,000 are killed after a tsunami or sea wave, caused by an undersea earthquake, wipes out communities on the north-western coast of Papua New Guinea.
June 1998:
Adana in south-eastern Turkey is shaken by an earthquake measuring 6.3, which claims 144 lives. A week later the same area suffers two strong aftershocks, leaving more than 1,000 people injured.
May 1998:
Northern Afghanistan is hit by a major earthquake, killing 4,000 people.
February 1997:
A quake measuring 5.5 tears apart rural areas of north-western Iran, killing 1,000 people. Three months later a stronger tremor, measuring 7.1, kills 1,560 in eastern Iran.
May 1995:
The far eastern island of Sakhalin is hit by a massive earthquake, measuring 7.5, which claims the lives of 1,989 Russians.
January 1995:
The Hyogo quake hits the city of Kobe in Japan, killing 6,430 people.
June 1994:
Around 1,000 people are killed by an earthquake and ensuing landslide in Colombia.
September 1993:
About 10,000 villagers are killed in western and southern India.
1990:
More than 40,000 people die in a tremor in the northern Iranian province of Gilan. |
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