KARACHI: No major earthquake likely to hit Karachi
By Bahzad Alam Khan
KARACHI, Oct 14: While the city’s proximity to the meeting point of at least three of the world’s major plates adds to its vulnerability to earthquakes, experts feel almost certain that no high-magnitude tremor will pummel it in the foreseeable future.
Plate tectonics, a theory of geology developed to explain the phenomenon of continental drift, governs earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building and oceanic trench formation.
“Since Karachi does not lie on a major fault line, it is not likely to become the epicentre of an earthquake. But it could be hit by a tremor measuring to a maximum of 5.5 on the Richter scale. For a built-up city like Karachi, this could be fairly devastating,” said the director-general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, Dr Qamaruzzaman Chaudhry.
“Prediction about earthquakes is made on the basis of their 100-year history in a region. I can therefore say that we should not expect a powerful earthquake in Karachi,” he said.
When asked to comment on the general public perception that there was no seismogram in the city, Dr Chaudhry asserted that Karachi had the earthquake-measuring device, as did cities such as Quetta, Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Gilgit. He said Quetta and Peshawar were major data-collecting centre and information about seismic activity was promptly passed onto them for analysis.
But the vice chancellor of the Federal Urdu University of Science and Technology, Dr Iqbal Mohsin, said that Karachi had an old and dilapidated seismogram. “When the Quetta received a new seismogram, its earthquake-measuring device was sent to Karachi. But it accurately measured the Bhuj earthquake which hit India in January 2001,” he conceded.
A geologist by qualification, he said soil conditions in the city, except for the coastal areas, were generally good. “But some areas like Gulistan-i-Jauhar had originally major depressions and they were developed after filling the depressions with soil brought from other areas. As a result, there are serious concerns about some high-rise buildings in Gulistan-i-Jauhar,” he said.
Dr Mohsin said buildings in the city’s coastal areas, especially those constructed on reclaimed land, might collapse in the event of an earthquake. He also underlined the need for carefully studying the tremors that had lately hit only the city’s coastal residential areas in Clifton and Defence.
He said that at least three of the world’s major plates –- Indian plate, Eurasian plate and Arabic plate –- met 60 kilometres southwest of Karachi. He said there were boundaries of plates within a radius of 100 kilometres of Karachi.
Analysts recall that four main faults around Karachi are PAB Fault, Runn of Kutch Fault, Ornach–Nal Fault, and Allahbund Fault.
They add that eight earthquakes have been recorded in the city since 1945.
The director-general of Pakistan Meteorological Department, Dr Qamaruzzaman Chaudhry, said field equipment was being procured which would enable the Met Office to find out the reason why tremors had only hit Karachi’s coastal areas.
