An M7.8 earthquake occurred 77km (48mi) NW of Kathmandu, Nepal April 25, 2015. It apparently occurred along the Main Himalayan thrust fault system which accommodates the substantial convergence between India and Eurasia. The last great earthquake in this region along the Himalayan arc was about 240 km southeast--the 1934 M8 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake--and caused major damage to Kathmandu and about 10,600 casualties. This 2015 earthquake is likely to have been devastating. More than 3.6 million people are expected to have felt very strong shaking.
May 12, 2015: a large aftershock occurred on the eastern end of the April 25, 2015 rupture zone: USGS summary
See this Jonathan Amos/BBC explainer on Why Nepal is so vulnerable to quakes. And, here is a blog entry from NY Times on Himalayan seismic risk. Here is the anticipation of damage and casualties from USGS Pager.
The focal mechanism, inverted finite fault, and the aftershocks are consistent with the interpretation of the event along the Himalayan Thrust system.
Here are some links I am accumulating:
- Summaries and overview
- USGS site
- USGS poster on the earthquake
- Overview from Mika McKinnon at Space.IO9
- Summary from Earth Observatory Singapore
- IRIS Teachable Moment
- Seismological data
- IRIS site on the event--includes back projection of seismic energy
- Array Network Facility site on event--includes seismograms from EarthScope USArray
- Arizona broadband seismic network recordings of the event
- Earthquake data recorded in Ihasa, Tibet (sped up 100 times into audible range)--Sounds of the eq and aftershocks from Zhigang Peng at GaTech
- Interpretations and anticipated hazard
- Roger Bilham briefing to ICIMod in mid May, 2015
- New piece from Professor Roger Bilham (Colorado) on this event
- Professor Roger Bilham (Colorado) has thought a lot about earthquakes along the Himalayan front and also devastating great events like this. See also this piece on Himalayan Seismic Hazard
- 1833 Nepal earthquake (Mw ~7.3-7.7)
- Bilham and Gaur, Buildings as Weapons of Mass Destruction, Science, 2013
- Geohazards International recent article on Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Risk Management
- Cosmos Magazine 2014 article on Kathmandu's Earthquake Nightmare
- Berkeley Seismo Blog "The Quake that Shook Mt. Everest"
- Nature News
- Commentary on CNN from Colin Stark
- Medieval pulse of great earthquakes in the central Himalaya: Viewing past activities on the frontal thrust
- GEM study of Himalayan Frontal Fault
- Jay Patton Compiled prior rupture maps, etc.
- Damage and other observations
- Landslide Blog entry on event
- OpenStreetmap site on event--accumulating data on damage
- Some simple notes from an earthquake engineer on photos from Nepal
- Shaking video from SkyAlert/Austin Elliot
- US AID information
- ICIMOD site--lots of useful information here
- News sites
- Stanford University work on social resilience
- CS Monitor What Nepal can teach about improving earthquake resilience
- Helpful Al Jazeera post event briefing
- BBC news coverage
- Washington Post article
- NPR: Economic Impact Of Nepal Quake Likely To Be Massive
- WP: Satellite images before and after
- IRIN News coverage
- EOS.org (Randy Showstack: Scientists Hope to Learn Lessons from Nepal Earthquake)
- National Geographic article
- How to help
