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In 2013, a M_W7.7 earthquake struck Balochistan, caused a huge surface offset and triggered a small tsunami in the Arabian Sea. Immediately, the apparently strange fault behaviour caused the attention of scientists world wide and a number of papers were published. The discussion is highly interesting and still ongoing. This an interesting case for paleoseismologists, too, not only because of the cascading earthquake effects, but also because of the surface rupture distribution, from which we might learn some important lessons for our future work. Now my colleague Yu Zhou and his colleagues from Oxford University published a new paper on this event, arguing that it might be not as unusual as it seems. Their research is based on the analysis of Pleiades stereo satellite imagery, which has proven to be a very useful data source already. Yu send me a nice summary of his recent research: more

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Makran Earthquake and Tsunami. On 27 November, 1945, an earthquake of magnitude Mw8.1 occurred at the Makran Subduction Zone offshore Pakistan. A large tsunami was triggered that reached the coasts of Pakistan, Iran, India, and Oman. The quake and the waves left approx. 4,000 people dead. A new book collects interviews with survivors. The book has been published by the UNESCO through its Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and is available for free download here. more

Karachi is the most populated city in Pakistan with around 24,000,000 inhabitants – just as many as Australia. Since many years a nuclear power plant (NPP) is located just a few miles outside the city at the shore. Ongoing work on new reactors with Chinese help has recently sparked outrage and media coverage. Concerns are that any accidents at the NPP might have dramatic consequences and threaten millions of people. I searched the recent scientific literature on seismic and tsunami hazard for Karachi…

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On 24 September, 2013, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake occurred in Balochistan, Pakistan. The quake caused intense ground motions and had dramatic consequences – hundreds of people died, and more than 100,000 lost their homes. A secondary effect which caught much attention in the international media was the birth of an island off the Pakistani coast – Zalzala Jazeera or Earthquake Island. Another effect which went almost completely unnoticed was a small tsunami in the Arabian Sea. The tsunami reached wave heights of around 1 m at the Omani coast. In a paper which was recently published in Geology, my colleagues and me document the tsunami effects in Oman. We conclude on a submarine slide off Pakistan as the likely trigger mechanism.

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After the strong earthquake in Pakistan a good part of the media coverage was about the fascinating story of the new island that emerged off Gwadar. While this was really amazing I think now it’s time to think about the consequences of the quake itself. We have seen a shallow M7.7 event that produced severe shaking across a large area. Peak ground acceleration exceeded 1 g in the 0.3 s period and was still intense in longer periods. 515 people have reportedly been killed and more than 100,000 are homeless. more

On 24 September a shallow M7.7 earthquake rattled Pakistan. At least 300 people died and thousands of houses, most of them adobe, collapsed in Balochistan Province. The quake was felt as far away as Muscat (Oman) and New Delhi (India). Epicentral intensities reached up to IX. The earthquake appeared to be a strike slip event. Soon the media reported on an amazing effect of the quake – in roughly 400 km distance a new island appeared few hundred meters off Gwadar. more