Quake effect: Part of India ‘slides by 10 ft’ under Nepal

Washington, April 28

A part of India slid by one to 10 feet northwards and underneath Nepal in a matter of seconds during the devastating 7.9-magnitude earthquake that hit the neighbouring country on Saturday, a US scientist has said.

“Saturday’s slip took place over an area about 1,000 to 2,000 square miles over a zone spanning the cities of Kathmandu and Pokhara in one direction, and almost the entire Himalaya mountain width in the other," said Colin Stark, Lamont Associate Research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University. “A part of India slid about one to 10 feet northwards and underneath Nepal in a matter of seconds,” Stark said.

"The rock (we call it the "crust", or more precisely 'lithosphere') below Bihar slid under Nepal along a zone from Bharatpur, through Hetauda, to Janakpur," said Stark.

“It’s important to realise that all of northern India is sliding north under Nepal, etc. all the time. The point is that the sliding takes place abruptly at different patches at different times," Stark said.

Geophysicists have long monitored how fast the earth's plates are moving, and it is known that the entire subcontinent of India is being driven slowly but surely underneath Nepal and Tibet at a speed of around 1.8 inches per year, Stark earlier wrote in an article.

Over millions of years, the squeezing has crushed the Himalayas like a concertina, raising mountains to heights of several miles and triggering earthquakes on a regular basis from Pakistan to Burma. — PTI