It Struck Deep
The Hindu Kush region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is mountainous, poor, and mired in conflict. Today, it is also digging itself out from the rubble of a monster quake.
At around 1:30pm local time, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake emanated from an epicenter about 130 miles below the surface in Afghanistans Badakhshan province. The quake occurred on the Indian/Eurasian plate boundarythe same subduction zone that caused the Nepal quake earlier this year, and the Kashmir quake from 2005. Currently, the human toll ranges from conservative official estimates of around 100 deaths to on the ground reports as high as 215.
The death toll might not rise as high as the Nepal quake from earlier this year, with an official death toll of nearly 10,000. Geography played some role in the devastating consequences of that quake; it struck near Kathmandu, which is both densely populated and in the middle of a liquefaction zone. But even more important was the quakes geology.
The Kathmandu quake was very shallowonly 11 miles below the surface. If you have a shallow quake you will have more damage, and greater potential for injuries, says Julie Dutton, geophysicist for the USGS. Similarly, the 2005 Kashmir quakewhich killed more than 80,000 peoplewas barely nine miles deep.
By contrast, Mondays slippage was of intermediate depth. A deep earthquake is felt widely, and it has to do with the transfer of energy through the earths crust, says Dutton. Its depth was enough to soften some of the violence of the shaking, but the effects were more widespread than if it were a shallow quake. In Islamabad, 200 miles from the quakes epicenter, people felt shaking for more than two minutes.
Mondays earthquake is, in some ways, a throwback to 2005. That year, this month, a 7.3 earthquake struck in almost the same region. However, that quake killed more than 80,000.
Even though this quakes depth muted its shakingthe epicenter was 130 feet deepit probably caused some serious structural damage in poor areas. Houses that are makeshift shelters will crumble at the tiniest of tremors, say experts.
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