Muzaffarabad, Pakistan Earthquake

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Posting Date: October 10, 2005, 9:30:00 AM

A major earthquake struck central Pakistan at 03:50 UTC (8:50 a.m. local time) on Saturday, October 8, 2005. The USGS estimates the moment magnitude to be 7.6 with a focal depth of 6 miles. The earthquake was centered near Kashmir’s Pakistani capital Muzaffarabad, a city of 600,000, located about 55 miles north-northeast of Islamabad. Pakistan’s prime minister said the country’s death toll was 19,396, while other government officials have issued estimates of up to 30,000. Neighboring India has reported at least 865 people died, though this number is certain to rise. More than 42,000 people have been reported injured. Though the region of damage extended more than 250 miles—from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory—the center of the devastation was in Muzaffarabad, where an estimated 11,000 people lost their lives. Hundreds of buildings have collapsed, including schools and the Muzaffarabad’s military hospital, and the city is without electrical power. More than 70% of the housing in Muzaffarad was destroyed, and the United Nations estimated that more than 2.5 million people have been left homeless in the aftermath. The seismotectonic environment of northern Pakistan is controlled by the interaction of the India and Eurasia plates. The Indian plate is moving northward at about 40 mm/yr. This collision has caused the subducting of the Indian plate beneath the Eurasian plate, creating the highest mountain peaks in the world including the Himalayan, the Karakoram, the Pamir and the Hindu Kush ranges. The process has created a very complex faulting system and collision fronts to accommodate the accumulating strain. The four main thrust faults in this system arc across the foothills in northern India and into northern Pakistan. The Himalaya thrust fault system, from the western Himalaya range in Pamir in the west to the eastern Himalaya range in the India-China-Myanmar border, is the source of the world’s largest historical continental earthquakes. At least four earthquakes of magnitude 8.0 - 8.5 have occurred in the last 110 years in this region, with the most recent event occurring in 1950: a magnitude 8.5 at the China-India border in Assam, which destroyed over 2000 homes. Saturday’s event occurred about 160 miles northwest of the 1905 Great Kangra earthquake, a magnitude 7.8 event that claimed more than 19,000 lives in the northern part of India.

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Posting Date: October 10, 2005, 9:30:00 AM