With nine back-to-back tremors jolting Jammu and Kashmir this week, experts and geologists are extremely rattled. Are these tremors a harbinger for the worst that is to come soon?
Seismologists have sounded a warning and said that in the wake of the recent quakes, precautionary measures should be put in place urgently.
On Saturday, two mild earthquakes struck Doda district. Meteorological Department officials said the tremors of magnitude 2.9 and 3.4 on Richter scale were reported within a span of less than five hours.
The National Centre for Seismology (NCS) said that two low-intensity tremors were recorded in J&K on Friday. It said the first tremor of magnitude 3.4 occurred at 3.28 am with latitude 33.17 degrees north and longitude 75.57 degrees east. The NCS said the epicenter was 3.5 km northeast of Doda town while the depth was 5 km inside the earth’s crust.
It added that the second tremor, measuring 2.7 on the Richter scale, occurred at 4.07 am with latitude 33.23 degrees north and longitude 75.56 degrees east. The epicenter was 10 km north of Doda and the depth was 10 km below the surface of the earth.
For a long time, geologists have been raising concern that Kashmir will be hit by a major earthquake, measuring 8 or more on the Richter scale, which will leave a trail of widespread devastation and destruction. In 2005, a massive quake, with a magnitude of 8 on the Richter scale, killed at least 80,000 people in two parts of Kashmir.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake left over 73,000 dead and millions homeless on either side of the Line of Control, which divides Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in October 2005. It was the deadliest earthquake in South Asia since 1935.
GM Bhat, a geologist at the University of Jammu, said that Doda, Kishtwar and other J&K regions have been tectonically active for a long time and in the recent past. He said that there was a likelihood of more such jolts in the coming days.
“We can’t predict a bigger one. Till now, there has been no such instance when earthquake has been predicted,” he said, adding that authorities and people need to take precautionary steps and prepare themselves for the ‘big’ one.