Delhi: India could be hit by massive
earthquakes, with a magnitude of 8.2 or greater on the Richter scale, a report
in the Times of India newspaper said Wednesday.
According to the ToI, MHA's National Institute
of Disaster Management (NIDM), in an assessment following the Nepal quake, has
warned of enhanced risk around the "ring of fire garlanding the entire north
India especially the mountains".
The report quoted the Ministry of
Home Affairs’ (MHA’s) disaster management experts as saying that quakes with a
higher intensity than the one which struck Manipur on Monday are likely to hit
the Himalayan region in future.
A series of recent earthquakes –
Manipur (January 2016), Nepal (May 2015) and Sikkim (2011) – which measured
6.7-7.3 on the Richter scale have re-ruptured tectonic plates that had
developed cracks due to previous incidents, says the newspaper report. This has
reportedly created conditions which might trigger massive earthquakes.
NIDM director Santosh
Kumar told the ToI that the interconnected plates across Nepal,
Bhutan, Myanmar and India pose a bigger danger. Kumar predicted that a disaster
of bigger magnitude could hit hill states, parts of Bihar, UP and even Delhi
which fall under the second worst seismic Zone IV classification. The
North-East and other hill states fall under severe seismic Zone V.
Kumar also said that the central
government has taken steps to encourage the governments of all the hill states
to adopt a common building code that is different from the rest of India.
According to the report,
seismologist Roger Bilham from the University of Colorado said:
"The current conditions might trigger at least four earthquakes greater
than 8.0 in magnitude. And if they delay, the strain accumulated during the
centuries provokes more catastrophic mega earthquakes."
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