Massive Earthquake Might Hit North India, Experts Say

Considering the frequency and intensity of the quakes that are hitting the Northern borders of India over the past few months, the experts have already predicted another massive quake, measuring about 8.2 in the Richter scale in the Himalayan region in near future. The catastrophic upshots that the recent quakes result are not yet over, but the more intimidating fact is that the repeated tremors have ruptured the seismic plates, which can induce more powerful quakes in the Himalayan Region in the coming days.

According to a Times of India report, expert say quakes with higher intensity than what struck Manipur on Monday are likely to rock the region in future. The tectonic shifts induce a series of these recent earthquakes — Manipur 6.7 (Jan 2016), Nepal 7.3 (May 2015) and Sikkim 6.9 (2011), which has created cracks and fissures across these regions. This will trigger multiple earthquakes which are likely to be more powerful than the previous ones.

In a post-Nepal disaster assessment, the MHA's National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) has cautioned the enhanced risk in the region of "ring of fire garlanding the entire north India especially the mountains". This has also been a highlighted part in the discussion of the meeting called by the Centre in Arunachal Pradesh's capital Itanagar where policy-makers from 11 hill states had participated and resolved to prepare a common building code for mountains.

NIDM director Santosh Kumar has recently talked about the risks induced by the interconnected plates across Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. He has also predicted a disaster of bigger magnitude that the hill states and parts of Bihar, UP and even Delhi might suffer in the long run. As these zones fall under the second worst seismic Zone IV classification and the North-East and other hill states fall under severe seismic Zone V, special attention should be given to these areas, so that required measures can be taken beforehand. 

Though some of the Indian geologists have a different view regarding this, the international luminaries like Roger Bilham, the seismologist of University of Colorado and an authority on the subject, opines that "the current conditions might trigger at least four earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude. And if they delay, the strain accumulated during the centuries provokes more catastrophic mega earthquakes."

Regarding this issue the experts have given significant focus on developing a common building code that is different from the rest of India. The recent Itanagar deliberations on sustainable development of mountain states is deemed as the Centre's earthquake risk mitigation strategy to sensitise policy-makers about "the natural time bomb".

Since the catastrophic earthquake in Nepal, stress has already increased along the north-east since the Nepal earthquake. Monday's 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Manipur shows that the situation of the seismic plates have become even worse.. "The collision between the Himalayan plate in the north and the Indo-Burmese plate in the east and the risk created as a result is the highest at this moment," according to NIDM experts. 

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