A newly discovered fault line under Myanmar, Bangladesh and India that has been building up tension for 400 years could slip and cause a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a new study published in the journal Nature Geosciences has warned.
Geologists from Columbia University say that a ‘megathrust fault’ resembling the one responsible for the huge 2011 earthquake in Japan could produce something similar in northwest India, northwest Myanmar and Bangladesh.
There is no way of predicting if and when the Indian plate, which is believed to be stuck on the underside of hills in Chin state, could slip, however.
“Whether this region actually will slip in one single earthquake, nobody can say yes or no,” Vineet Gahalaut, a geologist at India’s National Geophysical Research Institute, told National Geographic. “We don’t have enough data to prove or disprove this.”
Local experts in Yangon told the Myanmar Times. that they were looking into the research.
“We at the Myanmar Earthquake Committee cannot exactly say that the warnings of the researchers are possible or impossible,” Hla Hla Aung, a retired Yangon-based geology professor said. “A megathrust magnitude-9.0 earthquake has never struck in Burma according to the available historical information.”
The country has experienced smaller quakes in recent years. One in Mandalay Region claimed 26 lives in 2012. But experts have warned that the country is desperately underprepared for a large-scale earthquake.
Time to start thinking about it, maybe?
