Monday, March 14, 2005

Are we to Blame?

Earthquake measuring 5.1 shakes western India Koyna is only 115 kms from Pune. First time I felt a quake. And for around 2 seconds or so it was quite frightening. The last time I felt the floor shake like that was when I was at a live Deep Purple concert. Annon puts it in a more dramatic manner.
Some reports feel we are to blame However others, while stressing that the Koyna dam has had no damage in the current shake, also say that the reservoir is not to blame. According to Mr. Suresh Shirke( President of the Pune chapter of the Indian society of earthquake technology) the cause of this quake is the Russian plate theory.


of course the Sensex swung all over the place due to the earth shaking tremours

In a related story there was a fear of an earthquake in Bhuj on 12th March. However experts felt that the blasts were not quake induced. They said that it was more likely that it was a sonic boom
or something similar. Of course the expert says that it could also be an aftershock!!!

2 comments:

Sujith said...

If its true that the seismicity is induced by the reservior filling at Koyna, then it must also be true that the depth at which the faults would occur is quite close to the surface. In such a case, the tremors would not affect a large area even if the tremors are of higher intensity. Eg. If a building topples/collapses unto itself, the intensity of the force is very high but localised.
This quake not being felt in a wide area therefore actually lends credence to the claims that the reservoir is to blame.

brij said...

Of Man! That was cool. Realy nice to see the Sujith I know in these pages.

Regarding your comment - the way you have put it, it does seem logical and I do not have any way to counter that. In fact I never thought about it in this manner. So thanks for making me think in this direction.