[Skywise]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/e...al_summary

Don't even have to check the news to know this is gonna be bad. I feel for them already.

Brian

[Island Chris]

The summary at Brian's link has a lot of historical information, with a 1934 quake causing 10,000 fatalities. In addition to any building collapses in villages/towns, I would expect large-scale landsliding and snow avalanches. It is the start of mountain climbing season in he Himalaya.

OK: will check CNN: says 700 dead and avalanches on Mt Everest. Seems sure this toll will go much higher.

Chris

[Island Chris]

Watching a video from a climber at base camp at Makalu (with headline as Everest' Makalu is a different 8000 m mountain). They are OK at their base camp, but had not heard from the climbers higher on the mountain.

I almost posted yesterday about what seemed like a cluster in time of M6+ earthquakes the last few days.

Chris

[Island Chris]

Hi Brian,

I sent the Summary link to a research earth scientist who published a 1980s paper on Pakistan Himalaya, and who is still working on that plate boundary in Bangladesh and surrounding parts of India. He replied:
"Yes, thanks, but I want more.... I want to see the new earthquakes superposed on old earthquakes/ focal mechanisms. I don't seem to be able to do that directly from the page, ...."

I asked him if I could post this and he did not reply. This sounds up your alley: do it if you want to, don't if you don't: He may not do anything with it. But, I, and others who read here, would be interested.

Chris

[Island Chris]

The link below is interesting about the quake history of this fault.:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32472310

"In a sadly prescient turn of events, Laurent Bollinger, from the CEA research agency in France, and his colleagues, uncovered the historical pattern of earthquakes during fieldwork in Nepal last month, and anticipated a major earthquake in exactly the location where Saturday's big tremor has taken place. "

The aftershocks and an intensity map make it look like the quake ruptured to right beneath Kathmandu. A video on CNN.com shows the ground motion in Kathmandu, with the CNN person spouting pure nonsense about the motion. This pisses me off every time they have someone at CNN (or elsewhere) doing this.

Chris

[Skywise]

(04-26-2015, 11:17 AM)Island Chris Wrote: I asked him if I could post this and he did not reply. This sounds up your alley: do it if you want to, don't if you don't: He may not do anything with it. But, I, and others who read here, would be interested.

I can make a map easily enough. Either within the USGS map engine itself or download it as a KML file. It's just a matter of using the search parameters on the USGS map page.

But, it won't have focal mechanisms (beach balls) on the map.

I have long wanted to make a quake mapping program, and have made several attempts at programming one. But my programming skills just aren't up to the task yet. And much of what I want to do has become available in either the USGS or GoogleEarth systems. Of course, I would have had focal mechanisms.

Brian

[Island Chris]

An interesting link:


http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/25/world/nepa...index.html

and, I.W. sent me the links below, which I am now just glancing at. A major effort was done to retrofit schools, that may have saved a LOT of lives, although the quake was late morning on Saturday, when I don't know whether schools would have been in session.

this link is probably the one to read regarding the retrofitting of schools in Nepal, it is a short report and has photos etc.:
https://www.eeri.org/wp-content/uploads/..._Nepal.pdf

But it seems to have been a large international initiative, judging from the many links. Here are some others.
http://mcedc.colorado.edu/sites/default/...%20(2).pdf
http://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article...2_4080.pdf
http://www.preventionweb.net/english/mul...843&hid=60
http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-p...38121.html

But that article is scary:
http://www.unisdr.org/archive/29755

[Island Chris]

Lots of information at:

http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/speciale.../25/nepal/

By the way, I'm disappointed that no one except Brian and I have posted useful information on this quake. I'd like to know more about the earthquake rupture, and ground motion measurements (accelerations), and a lot of other things.

Chris

[Skywise]

(04-27-2015, 11:27 AM)Island Chris Wrote: https://www.eeri.org/wp-content/uploads/..._Nepal.pdf

"The region has seen four major earthquakes of magnitudes greater than 8.0 on the Richter scale within the last
100 years"

This statement from the above struck me as odd, as I had done a USGS map search for quakes within 1000km of the current event, and found only one M8 quake.... lemme go look again real quick....

OK... redid my search... opened it up to 2000km which is ridiculous.... but I found only 6 quakes larger than the current M7.8, and only one of them (an M8) was in Nepal.

However, despite my nitpicking, the region was/is/will be in dire need of infrastructure improvements.

Here's a map of the larger region, all quakes in the USGS catalog of M7.0 and larger. I've marked the magnitudes of quakes along the Himalayan front, and all quakes equal to and larger than the current event.

   

(04-27-2015, 11:27 AM)Island Chris Wrote: http://mcedc.colorado.edu/sites/default/...%20(2).pdf

This one I only scanned through as it's nearly 70 pages. But there are two maps in there for quake scenarios for which study and planning are apparently based upon. Interesting that the two scenarios have large quakes to either side of Kathmandu, but not under the city as just happened. Again, I only scanned the article so I may have missed something.

(04-27-2015, 11:27 AM)Island Chris Wrote: http://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article...2_4080.pdf

A short article describing a method of 'jacketing' the outer and inner walls of unreinforced brick buildings. it was done to at least one building as they show pictures of the method in progress.

I wonder how this and any other buildings using this method fared compared to their unjacketed neighbors. I'm sure there will be some studies coming out in the next year or two.

(04-27-2015, 11:27 AM)Island Chris Wrote: http://www.preventionweb.net/english/mul...843&hid=60

This video is well worth the 6-1/2 minutes as it explains the dangers and shows some more of the retrofitting technique being used on a specific school. Again, I'm curious how well it worked out.

(04-27-2015, 11:27 AM)Island Chris Wrote: But that article is scary:
http://www.unisdr.org/archive/29755

Agreed... scary:

"Conservative estimates are that the next big earthquake could result in 100,000 dead"

Brian

[Skywise]

(04-27-2015, 11:42 AM)Island Chris Wrote: Lots of information at:

http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/speciale.../25/nepal/

By the way, I'm disappointed that no one except Brian and I have posted useful information on this quake. I'd like to know more about the earthquake rupture, and ground motion measurements (accelerations), and a lot of other things.

Chris

This is a nice one with graphics for us seimsojunkies.

There's even a sound file of the quake motions sped up 100x. (which I can't seem to get to work - )

Chris, maybe those few here are looking to us for that info? But many of the links you've just provided are excellent resources. And, the USGS info page for the quake does have a lot of information as well. It's in there in spite of the not-too-long-ago revamping of the USGS pages. I suppose some folks still haven't got used to/got the hang of the new format.

Brian