Mega earthquake likely to strike the Himalayas.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: ‘’We learn geology the morning after the earthquake,’’ quipped the celebrated US poet Ralph Waldo Emerson back in the 19th century. The apocalyptic statement by Emerson reminds us of the fact that earthquake forecasting is sadly among the weakest links in geology as well as science in general. Humanity has always been literally caught napping whenever a tremor rips the bowels of the planet surfacing to perform that deadly tango.
This is not to negate the fact that huge strides have been made in science and technology but it has made very little impact on the accurate predictions of earthquakes which critically involves among numerous things the place where the underground shocks would occur; anticipated strength of future quakes and most crucial – the time of its occurrence.
This becomes even more worrisome when we note that populations are growing especially in the world’s earthquake prone regions which mean that the death rates could just skyrocket to unprecedented heights in the aftermath of a disaster. Conservative estimates point out that earthquake fatalities around the world will reach at least 3.5 million in the 21st century – more than double the 1.5 million in the 20th century.
Some more chilling news: Quake prone regions exist in India, China and Iran. They run all along the front regions of the Himalayan range as entire cities from Kathmandu to Delhi are becoming particularly vulnerable to catastrophic quakes (or where death tolls go over 50,000).
“Rapid urbanization and emergence of mega cities in the Asia Pacific Region have increased the risk posed by earthquakes and other national disasters,’’ says M. Shashidhar Reddy, Vice Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority.
Indian and US geologists have warned of a ‘mega earthquake’ that will strike the Himalayas this century bringing along a tragedy beyond imagination. Scientists from the National Geophysical Research Institute of India and Stanford University spoke on the fault that separates the Asian and Indian continental plates. It shows that a segment of it dips downwards by 15 degrees, and is steeper and further north than suggested by previous observations. This dip could rupture and cause an earthquake of magnitude 8 or more, often referred to as a mega earthquake.
The Himalayan region is the most active seismic regions in the world because it is at the edge or boundary of the Indian plate which is colliding with the stationary Eurasian plate. The plate motion, monitored through a GPS network along the boundary and elsewhere in the shield, shows the Indian plate moving at a speed of 5 centimeters a year. It is much faster than the speed of other tectonic plates.
Scientists also believe that the Northwards moving Indian plate is breaking away from the Australian plate, probably somewhere South of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. This is the zone of diffused seismicity.
“There is huge geological activity going on in the Himalayas. They have been and will continue to remain a location for major earthquakes,’’ Professor Sudhir K. Jain an expert in earthquake engineering explains.
The increased frequency of the quakes in the regions is also an aftermath of the 2004 quake in Sumatra, Indonesia, which shook up the entire earth even causing it to wobble a bit from its axis. Apart from quakes on the northern regions there is also increased seismic activity in Peninsular India as several tremors of magnitude 2 and 3 have been recorded in Andhra Pradesh in a short span of time.
A research team led by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has discovered that massive earthquakes in the range of 8 to 8.5 magnitudes on the Richter scale have left clear ground scars in the central Himalayas. This ground-breaking discovery has huge implications for the area along the front of the Himalayan Mountains.
“In an inter-connected world, disaster in one country could seriously impact many other countries – countries do not suffer in isolation. I would like to remind you about the impact of the flooding in Bangkok which resulted in disruption of supply of computer hardware the world over. I would also like to remind you about the impact of triple disasters in Japan which also resulted in temporary suspension of manufacturing in some sectors, thereby affecting its supply in different parts of the world,’’ Reddy said in an interview.
Now where do we go from here?
Traditional approaches to science of formulating a hypothesis and finding data to fit this (hypothesis) is becoming increasingly inadequate as we have seen from the outdated prediction of monsoons which are based on presumptions that landmasses heated up and finally shed the precipitation in the form of rains. But, today, these predictions, which are critical for countries like India, are slowly giving way to a more complex and sophisticated methodology. Data is gathered at various levels of the atmosphere and ocean depths and then fed into super computers for a final and more defining outcome on rainfall patterns.
In a similar fashion, earthquake prediction and studies must include, apart from more updated geological data, seamless coordinated international information gathering and sharing of networks. This should include also, scanning a plethora of data ranging from historic sunspot cycles to paleo-climatic data which could be computed to come up with an early warning system of killer quakes.
While we may not ever be able to predict precisely when, where and with what magnitude particular earthquakes will strike, much can be gained from short-term “probabilistic” forecasting, which can give the odds that an earthquake above a certain size will occur within a given area and time. Still, these short-term “probabilistic” methods have their limitations, as was demonstrated when even the most up-to-date models did not predict Japan’s deadly scale- 9 earthquake killing 19,000 people, in March, 2011.
This extreme inadequacy of an early warning system was also felt in March 2009 when a group of 11 Italian scientists met to discuss the risk of a powerful earthquake striking the town of L’Aquila, after a swarm of small quakes had hit the area continuously for four months. After concluding that there were no grounds for alarm, a devastating magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck the town on April 6th that year, leaving 308 people dead. Seven of those 11 scientists went on trial for manslaughter, and sentenced to six years in prison.
The seven – all members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks – were accused of having provided “inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory” information about the danger of the tremors felt ahead of the quake.
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