Earthquake jolts Nagpur distt again

By Kaushik Bhattacharya

Nagpur district once again witnessed back-to-back two earthquakes of M 2.6 magnitude each on Saturday afternoon. In the last four days, the district registered four swarm earthquakes that created panic among citizens and raised concern among geologists and experts of the city. According to the National Center for Seismology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, the first tremor was felt at Nishanghat area at 3.07 pm and the second one was observed at Mendhepathar area at 4.17 pm of Umred taluka of Nagpur district. Nagpur district had witnessed two earthquakes on March 26 also of M 2.8 magnitude each. Akola district also witnessed a tremor of M 2.6 magnitude the same day. However, Hingoli district which is situated 262 kms away from Nagpur district witnessed three earthquakes on March 22 in which one tremor was of M 4.5 magnitude that was also felt in Umerkhed taluka of Yavatmal district. On Saturday, both tremors were felt under 5 km depth whereas previous tremors of Nagpur, Akola and Hingoli districts took place below 10 km depth.

In the last eight days, in and around Nagpur district there were eight swarm earthquakes which raised concern among the geologists of the city. Some experts believe that such seismic activities in and around Nagpur district are taking place due to self-reactivation of a deep-located fault plane whereas some are terming it just because of blast induced seismicity. Initially the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had the earthquake division but later it was transferred to Geological Survey of India (GSI). Whereas, the major earthquakes of India in the recent past including Bhuj, Latur and Jabalpur happened when IMD had the control of the earthquake division. A senior meteorologist, told The Hitavada that recent tremors in Nagpur district are ‘blast-induced seismicity.’ “As a meteorologist, I monitored and witnessed Latur, Bhuj and Jabalpur earthquakes which took many lives. The Latur and Jabalpur earthquakes happened due to dam-induced seismicity whereas the Bhuj disaster was an example of natural tectonic movement,” said the senior meteorologist.

“The recent earthquakes that took place in and around Nagpur district are examples of blast induced seismicity because there are many coal mines situated near the district. The Saturday’s tremors took place in Umred, where coal extraction happens through blasts,” said the meteorologist. “We have state-of-the-art equipment to record earthquakes which can capture the waves of high intensity blasts also,” he added. While comparing with dam induced seismicity, the senior meteorologist said, “Dam-induced seismicity is more dangerous than the blast-induced earthquakes. Latur and Jabalpur disasters were the perfect examples of dam-based earthquakes.” Despite predicting two different angles of these swarm earthquakes, the experts agreed to conduct micro earthquake (MEQ) recording and macro seismic ground surveys in the epicenter localities.