Earthquake Aftermath and Destruction Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About The Earthquake In Nepal

The earthquake occurred on 25 April 2015 at 11:56 a.m. NST (06:11:26 UTC) at a depth of approximately 15 km (9.3 mi) (which is considered shallow and therefore more damaging than quakes that originate deeper in the ground),^[22] with its epicenter approximately 34 km (21 mi) east-southeast of Lamjung, Nepal, lasting approximately twenty seconds.^[23] The earthquake was initially reported as 7.5 M_w by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) before it was quickly upgraded to 7.9 M_w and finally downgraded to 7.8 M_w. The China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) reported the earthquake's magnitude to be 8.1 M_s. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said two powerful quakes were registered in Nepal at 06:11 UTC and 06:45 UTC. The first quake measured 7.9 M_w and its epicenter was identified at a distance of 80 km to the northwest of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Bharatpur was the nearest major city to the main earthquake, 53 km (33 mi) from the epicenter. The second earthquake was somewhat less powerful at 6.6 M_w. It occurred 65 km (40 mi) east of Kathmandu and its seismic focus lay at a depth of 10 km (6.2 mi) below the earth's surface. Over thirty-five aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 M_w or greater occurred in the day following the initial earthquake, including the one of magnitude 6.6 M_w.^[24]

 

According to the USGS, the temblor was caused by a sudden thrust, or release of built-up stress, along the major fault line where the Indian Plate, carrying India, is slowly diving underneath the Eurasian Plate, carrying much of Europe and Asia.^[22] Kathmandu, situated on a block of crust approximately 120 km (75 miles) wide and 60 km (37 miles) long, reportedly shifted 3 m (10 ft) to the south in just 30 seconds.^[25]

 

The risk of a large earthquake was well known beforehand. In 2013, in an interview with seismologist Vinod Kumar Gaur, The Hindu quoted him as saying, "Calculations show that there is sufficient accumulated energy [in the MFT], now to produce an 8 magnitude earthquake. I cannot say when. It may not happen tomorrow, but it could possibly happen sometime this century, or wait longer to produce a much larger one."^[26] According to Brian Tucker, founder of a nonprofit organisation devoted to reducing casualties from natural disasters, some government officials had expressed confidence that such an earthquake would not occur again. Tucker recounted a conversation he had had with a government official in the 1990s who said, "We don't have to worry about earthquakes anymore, because we already had an earthquake"; the previous earthquake to which he referred occurred in 1934.