India: Garhwal, Himachal could experience a 8 magnitude quake in future: Study

Source(s): Down To Earth

By Shagun Kapil

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“The estimated earthquake potential prevailing in the western Himalayan seismic gap lying between the epicentral zone of the 1905 Kangra earthquake and the 1975 Kinnaur earthquake reveals that the total amount of energy released since the last great event is only a fraction (3–5 per cent) of the accommodated energy,” says the research paper published in June last year in the Journal of Asian Earth Sciences by a group of scientists from different institutes.

“This suggests that if an earthquake hits this NW (North West) Himalayan segment in the future, its magnitude might be greater than or equal to 8.0,” the paper adds.

The objective of the study was to estimate the characteristics of or predict what kinds of large earthquakes could occur in the NW Himalayan (India) region in the future. The analysis was carried out using high-quality seismic data that was acquired using broadband seismometers from 2004-2013.

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However, Sushil Kumar, scientist at the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG), Dehradun, and one of the authors of the study, said that it would be wrong to say that the rest of the energy is accumulated inside the earth’s surface.

[...]

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