Location
San Diego, California
Presentation Date
29 May 2010, 11:05 am - 11:20 am
Abstract
Geologically, Kashmir and northwestern areas of Pakistan are located in most active seismic zones of sub-continent. In Kashmir area, earthquakes had been triggered by a continuous subduction phenomenon of Indian plate under Eurasian plate; a collision zone that created Himalaya Mountain range and still giving it a rise of 1 cm each year. The Quetta earthquake occurred on part of the left-lateral Chaman Fault System and was measured 8.1 on Richter scale with focal depth of 17 km. The earthquake completely devastated the city of Quetta, leaving 35000-60000 dead and injuring thousands of people in affected areas. The Kashmir earthquake was caused by the active Murree/ Muzaffarabad fault in Indo-Kohistan collision zone. The human loss was estimated to 80,000 dead and 600,000 injured. Almost all villages in and around cities of Muzaffarabad and Balakot were razed to the ground. Extensive slope failures and landslides severely damaged road and bridges. The landslides even temporarily blocked River Jhelum near Muzaffarabad City; due to blockade of two tributaries of the river, lakes were created and they are still intact. The slope failures also wiped off villages built on slopes and in foot hills. The aim of this research paper is to share information on geotechnical aspects of recent earthquakes in Pakistan. The paper enhanced the understanding of seismotectonics of seismically active areas of Pakistan.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
5th International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2010 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Ali, Sarfaraz; Ali, Liaqat; and Ammar, Muhammad, "Geotechnical Aspects of Recent Pakistan Earthquakes" (2010). International Conferences on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics. 2.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icrageesd/05icrageesd/session13/2
Included in
Geotechnical Aspects of Recent Pakistan Earthquakes
San Diego, California
Geologically, Kashmir and northwestern areas of Pakistan are located in most active seismic zones of sub-continent. In Kashmir area, earthquakes had been triggered by a continuous subduction phenomenon of Indian plate under Eurasian plate; a collision zone that created Himalaya Mountain range and still giving it a rise of 1 cm each year. The Quetta earthquake occurred on part of the left-lateral Chaman Fault System and was measured 8.1 on Richter scale with focal depth of 17 km. The earthquake completely devastated the city of Quetta, leaving 35000-60000 dead and injuring thousands of people in affected areas. The Kashmir earthquake was caused by the active Murree/ Muzaffarabad fault in Indo-Kohistan collision zone. The human loss was estimated to 80,000 dead and 600,000 injured. Almost all villages in and around cities of Muzaffarabad and Balakot were razed to the ground. Extensive slope failures and landslides severely damaged road and bridges. The landslides even temporarily blocked River Jhelum near Muzaffarabad City; due to blockade of two tributaries of the river, lakes were created and they are still intact. The slope failures also wiped off villages built on slopes and in foot hills. The aim of this research paper is to share information on geotechnical aspects of recent earthquakes in Pakistan. The paper enhanced the understanding of seismotectonics of seismically active areas of Pakistan.
