HYDERABAD: While tremors of a 6.3-magnitude that struck Nepal were felt till Vijayawada in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday night, seismologists and geophysicists dispelled the possibility of an earthquake having an epicentre in Telangana due to its stable geology.
M. Ravi Kumar, chief scientist and head of the seismology department at the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad, said, “Typically, the regions of southern India are relatively stable because we are far from the plate boundaries, which are also called ‘stable continental interiors’ (SCI). Unlike the Indo-Gangetic plains, such as Lucknow, Delhi and Haridwar, which are covered with a thick pile of sediments, which bring the amplification of waves, Hyderabad sits on a solid granite mass, so there is no amplification of waves as such, thus making the city safe from an occurrence like earthquakes.”
Moreover, the occurrences such as Bhuj and Killari, called intra-continental earthquakes, are also rare occurrences, with a possibility of recurrence only every few hundred years.
B. Veeraiah, HOD, geophysics department of Osmania University and principal of the University College of Sciences, said, “The entire Indian plate is moving towards the north and more towards the northeastern part and that is why we have so many earthquakes in the Assam and the Bengal region, and further Arunachal Pradesh. The Indian plate is colliding with the Eurasian plate and the collision zones are getting more active in nature because of which more earthquakes are happening in those areas.”
“The entire Himlayan belt is weathering due to tectonic disturbance because of physical activities, such as cloud burst and heavy rains in places such as Uttarkashi. Such activities make the tremors felt more strongly in those areas of the Himalayan belt because of the disturbances in the plates,” Veeraiah said.
