East coast suffers first earthquake

Visakhapatnam: The 5.8-magnitude quake with epicentre in the Bay of Bengal, around 275 km southeast of Paradip grabbed the attention of scientists and made them take up a fresh investigation into the reactivation of fault lines in the Bay.

The quake occurred between the Mahanadi offshore basin and the Bengal basin on Wednesday and had a magnitude of around 6. It is considered a rare phenomenon.

“The earthquake off the Paradip coast is the first of its kind. There is a lineament offshore separating Bengal and Odisha basins at 19 N, and this may probably extent up to 18.24 N where the epicentre of the quake is located. There might be a reactivation of the fault lineament in the movement of plates due to compression and this has to be studied,” said Dr K.S.R. Murthy, a retired scientist of the National Institute of Oceanography who is an expert in geophysics. He said these events are very rare and is not likely to repeat.

Experts in geophysics said there are quake zones in Ongole, Bheemili and Nellimerla in Vizianagaram and Puducherry due to tectonic faults. Earlier quakes did not trigger tsunamis as they were not in the subduction zone, they said.

Prof. G. Krishna Rao, a retired geology professor of AU said the extraction of natural gas on a large scale has created stress leading to subsidence of strata. This disturbed the equilibrium leading to readjustment of rocks and the quake was probably triggered due to release of stress, he said.