Earthquakes in India

Earthquakes are one of the most devastating natural disasters on this planet. In this essay I will talk about what an earthquake is, why India regularly suffers from major earthquakes, and how the major earthquakes effect the Indian people. I will also explain some of the most devastating earthquakes in India’s history.

An earthquake occurs when tension builds up in the layers of rock underneath the earth’s surface. The tension is so strong that the earth’s plates can’t handle it, so they either grind, bump or clash together causing the surface of the earth to shake vigorously and some times cause fold mountains. Fold Mountains are when the earth’s plates are pushing so hard against each other that they crumble forming long ranges of mountains called Fold Mountains. When this shaking occurs it causes and extreme amount of damage. Buildings will collapse bridges will fall and roads will sometimes split in half.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of northern and western India lie along the edges of two tectonic plates. These plates are called the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. As the Indo-Australian plate slowly crashes into the Eurasian plate the pressures build up until the surrounding land folds or tears. This process, after millions and millions of years, has caused the Himalayas, the largest mountain range in the world to form. These two plates will either move into each other to cause the Himalayas to rise, or the two plates will move from side to side which is mainly how all the major earthquakes occur.

Each plate moves inward around 5cm each year, which causes the Himalayas to rise around 4cm each year.

These earthquakes have killed thousands of people and left even more homeless. The earthquakes affect the Indian people by destroying their homes, families and lives and because most of the Indian houses are made from stone it makes them a lot more vulnerable for destruction.

In some of the large earthquakes (5.0 on the Richter scale or higher) planes come supplying the city/town with soldiers, paramedics, food, medicine and tents for the Volunteer rescue workers and the injured or trapped. But in many cases it is being left to volunteers, friends and neighbours, to dig into the rubble with whatever basic tools they could find to find their loved ones.

The most recent major earthquake was on January 26 2001 in the region of Gujarat it was 7.9 on the Richter scale and the experts say it may be one of the most destructive in the nation's history. Several hundred thousand people were injured; nearly one million were left homeless and the structural damage is in the billions of dollars. Official estimates placed the death toll at 16,000, and perhaps as high as 100,000.

The earthquake also shook Nepal, Bangladesh and much of Pakistan.

The epicentre (the centre of the earthquake) was in Bhuj and had the most damage, practically destroying everything in sight.

In conclusion I think that the houses, buildings and any other things that can be damaged by an earthquake should be built to with stand the complexity of these devastating earthquakes as this is basically the main thing that kills people in Earthquakes.