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Major earthquake `overdue` in northern India: study
Lives of millions of people living in northern India and nearby countries could be at risk from a major earthquake which research suggests may hit the region in coming years, according to an article in the US magazine `Science`.
Lives of millions of people living in northern India and nearby countries could be at risk from a major earthquake which research suggests may hit the region in coming years, according to an article in the US magazine 'Science'.
"Several lines of evidence show that one or more great earthquakes may be overdue in a large fraction of the Himalaya, threatening millions of people in that region," the researchers wrote in the edition of 'Science' to be published on Friday.
Geologists Vinod Gaur of the Indian Astrophysics Institute and Roger Bilham and Peter Molnar of the University of Colorado examined geological evidence as to the extent of surface ruptures caused by previous earthquakes.
"We cannot rule out the possibility that parts of the Himalaya have not ruptured for 500 to 700 years," they concluded. In this long-term view, "the mid-Himalayan 20th-century earthquakes would have been atypically small," and the region could now store the strain for a major earthquake, they said. The researchers noted that in the Ganges Plain, running across north India below the Himalayan mountains, there are today ten times more people than lived there at the time of an earthquake in 1905, when collapsing buildings killed 19,500 people. In total about 50 million people are at risk today from a major earthquake in the region, including city-dwellers in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan, they said. Bureau Report
"Several lines of evidence show that one or more great earthquakes may be overdue in a large fraction of the Himalaya, threatening millions of people in that region," the researchers wrote in the edition of 'Science' to be published on Friday.
Geologists Vinod Gaur of the Indian Astrophysics Institute and Roger Bilham and Peter Molnar of the University of Colorado examined geological evidence as to the extent of surface ruptures caused by previous earthquakes.
"We cannot rule out the possibility that parts of the Himalaya have not ruptured for 500 to 700 years," they concluded. In this long-term view, "the mid-Himalayan 20th-century earthquakes would have been atypically small," and the region could now store the strain for a major earthquake, they said. The researchers noted that in the Ganges Plain, running across north India below the Himalayan mountains, there are today ten times more people than lived there at the time of an earthquake in 1905, when collapsing buildings killed 19,500 people. In total about 50 million people are at risk today from a major earthquake in the region, including city-dwellers in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan, they said. Bureau Report