Nepal Earthquake: The earth has shaken once again in Nepal, situated in the lap of Himalayas. Here the earth shook so much that more than 70 people lost their lives. Actually, a strong earthquake of 6.4 magnitude occurred in Nepal on Friday (3 November) night. The tremors of the earthquake were so powerful that it was felt even in the northern states including the capital of India, Delhi. Earthquake tremors occurred in Nepal at 11.32 pm. People even had to run away from their homes to save their lives.
However, this is not the first time that Nepal has faced such earthquake tremors. Earthquakes have been occurring in Nepal before and the most recent case is the earthquake that occurred in 2015, in which 8 thousand people died. But now the question arises that why do earthquakes occur again and again in Nepal, what is hidden beneath its earth, which makes it stronger when shaken? Let us try to know the answers to these questions today.
Why do earthquakes occur frequently in Nepal?
Actually, the answer to this question is hidden in the location of Nepal and its geography. Only 17 percent area in Nepal is plain i.e. uniform. The rest of the area has either mountains or forests. The plain area is known as Terai. At the same time, high Himalayan mountains are present on its northern end. To understand why Nepal suffers so many earthquakes, we also need to know a little bit of geology.
The Earth’s crust is made up of large tectonic plates. All the continents of the earth are included in this land area. There is activity in these tectonic plates and they keep moving and colliding with each other. Nepal exists on the edge of two such big tectonic plates. Actually, Nepal is located between the Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates. When these two plates collide, earthquakes occur in Nepal.
Both the plates are moving towards each other at the rate of 5 cm every year, due to which earthquakes occur frequently in Nepal. Even though this speed may seem small to you, its impact is huge. Due to the collision of these two plates, the Himalayan mountains were formed 50 million years ago. A big problem of Nepal is its weak buildings, which are not capable of handling strong earthquake tremors. This is the reason why whenever an earthquake occurs, a large number of people lose their lives.