earthquake in kathmandu

Advertisement

A massive underground faultline that ruptured last year, causing a killer earthquake in Nepal, is still under tremendous strain underneath Kathmandu, a study said on Monday.

This meant another major tremor could happen in an area home to more than 1 million people within years or decades rather than the centuries that typically elapse between quakes, researchers wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Nepal earthquake continues to drive aftershocks through the lives of women | Natalie Curtis

Lead author John Elliott of Oxford University said the rupture, shooting upward through the faultline from deep below, stopped abruptly 11km (6.8 miles) beneath the Nepalese capital, leaving an unbroken upper portion nearer the surface.

The unbroken upper part of the fault, added Elliott, “is continuously building up more pressure over time”.

“As this part of the fault is nearer the surface, the future rupture of this upper portion has the potential for a much greater impact on Kathmandu if it were to break in one go in a similar-sized event to that of April 2015,” he said.

Nepal rests on a major faultline between two tectonic plates. One bears India and pushes north and east at a rate of about 2cm (0.8 inches) per year against the other, which carries Europe and Asia.

This process created the Himalaya mountain range and causes earthquakes when strain built up along the fault gives way periodically, thrusting the overlying landmass up and outward.

Nepal earthquake survivor rebuilds his life through physiotherapy – in pictures

The study is the latest to warn of the risk of another major quake around Nepal’s Gorkha district, near the epicentre of a 7.8-magnitude tremor on 25 April – the worst in Nepal in more than 80 years. It was followed on May 12 by a 7.3-strong aftershock.

Advertisement