Short Brief on 2015 Nepal Earthquake

Magnitude 7.9, 4600 deaths and climbing Earthquake hit the congested capital and caused an avalanche on Mt. Everest. The Indian Plate is moving

NE at 5cm/year and the Eurasian Plate is moving N at 2cm/year. This causes the Eurasian Plate to deform and the Indian Plate to compress.

The collision between the two continental plates formed the orogenic belt that created the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas.

o Convergent plate boundary, destructive plate movement Remarkably prescient studies on historical earthquakes in the Himalayas

o Happened in the vicinity in 1255, 1344 and 1934 (larger magnitude, ~100000 deaths)o Stress transfer (when a major earthquake occurs, it changes the conditions on the next segments

of the fold which had ruptured it loads the next segment with stress, giving it the potential for a future quake)

o Time difference between 1255 and 1344: 89 years, between 1934 and 2015: 81 years. o The 1934 quake loaded another segment with stress, which led to the 2015 quake.

Affected India and China too Entire villages leveled or engulfed by landslides Very poor accessibility in remote areas, lack of technology rescuers were digging through rubble with

their hands, unreliable communications, unstable power grid