Himalayan earthquakes
Topic: Natural Hazards and Disaster Management in India · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 6 "Natural Hazards and Disasters: Causes, Consequences and Management"
Meaning
The Indian plate moves north-northeast. NCERT gives about 1 cm a year, and GPS measurements show about 4-5 cm a year. The Indian plate is pressed against the Eurasian plate and locked, so it cannot slide smoothly. Stress slowly builds up in the rocks and is then suddenly released as earthquakes along the Himalayan arc. That is why the Himalaya and the northeast are among India's most quake-prone areas.
Example
The most vulnerable areas are J&K, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, the Darjeeling subdivision and all seven northeastern states. Great past quakes there include Shillong (1897), Bihar-Nepal (1934) and Assam (1950, about magnitude 8.6). On 8 October 2005, a magnitude 7.6 quake near Muzaffarabad (PoK) killed over 80,000 people.
Don't confuse with
- Peninsular earthquakes: quakes such as Latur 1993 happen inside the "stable" Indian plate, linked to faults like the Bhima fault. Himalayan quakes happen where two plates collide.
Related concepts
- Seismic zones of India
- Bhima fault
- Reservoir-induced earthquake
- Latur earthquake 1993
- Bhuj earthquake 2001
- 2005 Kashmir earthquake