Tremors in Uttarakhand pose severe threat for a dangerous earthquake of larger magnitude in future
People in Uttarakhand may not be worried by occassional small earthquakes taking place in various parts of Uttarakhand as the one of the magnitide of 4.3 on Richter scale that occured in Chamoli district of Utarakhand on Monday at 12.31 AM, with its epic centre just 44 kilometres away in Northwest of Joshimath.
According to the National Centre of Seismolgy’s authentic reports the epic centre was 22 kilometres deep at 30. 94 ( latitude ) and 79.44 ( longitude). Though the magnitude of these tremors were not much but the frequent earthquakes about 51 to 54 during the last six years since 2015 have definitely send dangerous signals with seismologists predicting a major earth in the future though not knowing the exact period of this earthquake.
Past reports, quoting scientists of Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, one published in Indian Express says : About 45 kms from the new Kailash Mansarovar road connecting Dhar Chula in Uttarakhand to Lipu Lekh on the China border, the scientists have unearthed large concentrations of micro and moderate magnitude earthquakes in Dharchula region and adjoining areas of the Kumaon Himalayas due to stress in the region and explored the geological structure behind it leading to conclusions that these ” stored stress energy” may lead to powerful earthquakes in the future.
Similarly in 2018 Executive Director of Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre Piyush Rautela had made startling revelations about the possible future major earthquakes in Uttarakhand.
Rautela said that in 1803 and 200 years ago there had been massive earthquakes in Garhwal, Uttarakhand, the Srinagar earthquake resulting in massive human and property losses and as a result there had been tremendous amount of un – released energy in this region which is longing to come out. This massive Garhwal Himalayan earthquake tremors were felt from Punjab to Calcutta in India.
This accumulated energy in abundance stored since the last 200 hundred years could find an outlet in Uttarakhand any time.
In addition to this scientific apprehension Rautela says that the existence of a 700 kilometres of protracted seismic gap on the Himalayan front ranging from Uttarakhand to Himachal Pradesh and Nepal may also result is a major earthquake as it has not ruptured till yet since the last more than 200 years.
It may be recalled that Uttarakhand is today being dug by the Railways with 75 percent of railway tunnels till Karnaprayag making the hills hollow from inside including large scale deforestation during the All Weather Roads ongoing multi projects compounded with the thousands of tons of muck of eroded mountains going directly in the ganges making the smooth river flow squeezed. In Uttarakhand the man made disasters have been very often arriving like the one that happened in 2013 June killing more than 5.5 thousand pilgrims as per the govt figures which seems to be quite squeezed compounded with collossal losses of thousands of crores and destabilisation of hundreds of villages with large numbers of houses, building swept including human lives.
This catastrophe was followed by the recent Dhauli Ganga cloud burst disaster killing more than 2 thousand people with Vishnugad NTPC hydropower plant completely damaged n its four tunnel filled with muck n silt killing people on the spot.
The seismologists n earth scientists have also predicted about a more than 8 magnitude horrifying tremors in the offing of severe consequence with damage till the national capital in the future within fifty years. Can be tomorrow, day after, after five years or so on n so forth with half a century ? There is still time to strengthen the preventive measures and caution ourselves against these dangerous earthquakes to follow in the future. There is a big question mark ?
