Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday said low-intensity tremors helped prevent major earthquakes as he attempted to allay panic caused by the recent seismic activity that continued for the third day in Karachi.<\/p>\n
The metropolis continued to witness faint tremors today, taking the tally since Sunday to 20, according to data provided by the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). Experts have previously pointed out that such minor seismic activities \u201cpreempt\u201d high-intensity earthquakes by constantly releasing accumulated energy within the tectonic plates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have also studied engineering [\u2026] these (low-scale tremors) are a good thing. The earth is releasing its energy,\u201d CM Shah said, responding to reporters\u2019 queries about yesterday\u2019s jail break incident in Karachi.<\/p>\n
He explained that if the earth released its seismic energy altogether, it could result in a major earthquake. \u201cBut if it releases in bits, then it is better \u2014 nothing is actually better \u2014 but saves us from a big tragedy,\u201d Murad added.<\/p>\n
The most recent tremor occurred at 11:52am and measured 2.0 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre located 23 kilometres east of Malir, according to the PMD\u2019s data.<\/p>\n
Since Sunday \u2014 when the series of minor quakes began \u2014 the total of tremors recorded near Malir is nine, five near the Defence Housing Authority, three near Quaidabad, along with one each near Gadap Town, Korangi and DHA City on the outskirts of Karachi.<\/p>\n
The 3.6-magnitude jolt from Sunday evening was the most significant, while the lowest measured was of 2.0 magnitude from today morning.<\/p>\n
Karachi Chief Meteorologist Amir Hyder Laghari pointed out yesterday that there was a historical fault line which has become activated, causing frequent earthquakes in the city.<\/p>\n
He said the fault is releasing its seismic energy, and when it\u2019s spent, the tremors\u2019 magnitude will reduce. Laghari added he expected the small-scale jolts to end within a week.<\/p>\n
Murad\u2019s remarks today echoed opinions voiced by Laghari and other experts, who have said that the chances of a major quake in Karachi are low.<\/p>\n
Pakistan falls on three major tectonic plates \u2014 the Arabian, Eurasian and Indian \u2014 according to geological engineer Muhammad Rehan, creating five seismic zones within the country.<\/p>\n
Dr Imran Ahmed Khan of Karachi University\u2019s Department of Geography said an imbalance between the Indian, Eurasian and Arabian plates may be causing the tremors in the city. He added that the quakes will likely stop when a balance between the plates has been achieved.<\/p>\n
Dr Adnan Khan, associate professor at the KU\u2019s Department of Geology, noted that a huge earthquake was unlikely in Karachi as the city was situated far from active plate boundaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cKarachi lies on what\u2019s called a \u2018passive margin\u2019, so the chances of a big earthquake happening there are low. Small earthquakes do happen sometimes, usually between 3 and 4 on the Richter scale, but they are not dangerous,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Dr Imran explained that the Indian tectonic plate is moving upward by about 4 to 5 centimetres every year in the Himalayan region.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the Eurasian plate is pushing against it. As these two plates press against each other, they build up pressure, and when the pressure becomes too much, it rebounds and is released as energy, causing earthquakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday said low-intensity tremors helped prevent major earthquakes as he attempted to allay panic caused by the recent seismic activity that continued for the third day in Karachi. The metropolis continued to witness faint tremors today, taking the tally since Sunday to 20, according to data provided by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9760,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758\/revisions\/9760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}