Earthquakes - the next will hit

Some time back, I wrote about how earthquakes would be moving north after the massive 9.15 magnitude Sumatra-Andaman quake that struck the Indonesian fault plate and caused the deadly Tsunami that killed around 275,000 people all along the rim of the Indian Ocean, although its effects were felt in every corner of the world.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that such a massive geological shift would transfer the strain to geological fault lines to the North. So far, so bad.

The news however, gets worse. Not that it isn’t bad enough already given the devastation wrought by the 7.6 magnitude to strike Kashmir and the surrounding region. The death toll is enormous, estimated to be around 30,000 with 50,000 injured (and counting).

What makes this particular earthquake so ominous is where it occurred; at the very apex of the Indo-Australian plate. This means the tectonic stresses have compressed the fault lines, placing more pressure along those lines which are most active, which, in the case of Turkey, happens to be the fault lines running near Istanbul, a city with a population of around 11 million people and some would say, the kind of buildings which are less likely to withstand a major earthquake.






Links:
Worldwide Earthquake Locator