Women and men of science have long known that an earthquake would strike the area of Kathmandu in Nepal. This part of the Himalayas has been calm for too long. Kate Ravilious wrote, nearly a year ago, today seemingly heralding, an article about the fact that there will be a new major earthquake in Nepal around Kathmandu.
And as late as in the beginning of April this year, there was an international convention in Kathmandu covering the topic of the next big earthquake. Just two weeks later it struck Nepal.
Although experts all agree that it is not possible to predict earthquakes with any great accuracy – we still know that it will strike, and roughly to the accuracy of a couple of years – when.
The Earth’s crust and mantle form lithospheric plates (continental or oceanic). The mountain range of the Himalaya is created just by the fact that two tectonic plates, the Indian and the Eurasian, have been pushed together over millions of years.
About once every hundred years, the tension between the two plates becomes so high that eventually they ”must” move in relation to each other. That is what happened this year and what resulted in two massive earthquakes and dozens of aftershocks.
The last time (1934) there was a major earthquake in this area, the epicenter roughly was in the same place as earthquake number two this time. It struck close to Mount Everest.
Read more:
cnn.com
ft.com (Financial Times)
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