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Sunday, Oct 09, 2005

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National

Biggest in 100 years

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The earthquake that hit Muzzafarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, sending shock waves across north India on Saturday, was the biggest to strike the region in the past 100 years. The previous record was in 1943, when a quake with a magnitude of 6.7 on the Richter scale hit the region.

According to seismologists at the India Meteorological Department, though the region was quake prone and had recorded over 300 tremors since 1885, from when recorded data is available, the magnitude of none of the temblors had so far gone past 7 on the Richter scale. Even with a magnitude between 6 and 7 on the Richter scale, there had been only five quakes, making it about 1.5 per cent of the total.

The scientists said that it was, however, not an unusual event. The region in the Karakoram mountains was an extension of the Alpine Himalayan belt, which is known for its high level of seismicity, because of the constant collision of the Indian tectonic plate with the Eurasian plate.

Several studies have shown that south of the Himalayas, the top surface of India's basement rock was flexing and sliding beneath the Himalayas in lurches and that India and southern Tibet were converging at a rate of about 2 cm a year. A 50-km wide region centred on the southern edge of the Tibetan plateau alone was found to absorb about 80 per cent of the convergence.

There have been 13 major earthquakes with a magnitude of above 6 on the Richter scale since 1885 in the Himalayas. Of them, four were above 8 on the Richter scale, and five between 7 and 8.

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