Causes of an Earthquake
Gujarat, India
India's 52nd Republic Day Earthquake (epicenter location 9 km southsouthwest of the village of Chobari, in Bhachau Taluka, of the Kutch
District of Gujarat, India) lasted for over two minutes. This earthquake
scored 7.9 on the Richter scale. It occurred at 8:46 AM on January
26th, 2001.
This intraplate earthquake occurred away from any active plate
boundary. The shock waves spread 700 km. The earthquake killed
around 20,000 people (including 18 in South eastern Pakistan), injured
another 167,000 and destroyed nearly 400,000 homes.
The earthquake was caused at the convergent plate boundary
between the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate boundary. These
pushed together and caused the earthquake. However as Bhuj is in an
intraplate zone, the earthquake was not expected, this is one of the
reasons so many buildings were destroyed – because people did not
build to earthquake resistant standards in an area earthquakes were
not thought to occur. In addition the Gujarat earthquake is an
excellent example of liquefaction, causing buildings to ‘sink’ into the
ground which gains a consistency of a liquid due to the frequency of
the earthquake.