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Quake A Disaster without any warning
U Sumar Sing Sawian
Human beings live and continue to live, inspite of the vast devastation, the loss of millions of lives, and the destruction of property and huge land mass, caused by earth shaking quakes, all over the globe. Without any warnings or alarm bells, in any given time or place and worst of all inspite of the advance of scientific knowledge, earthquakes cannot be predicted.
There are legends and belief, as the Japanese do, that earthquake is caused in a sudden movement of the giant spider that carries the earth on its back. The Khasis term the earthquake as “Jumai”- being the carpenter of the earth –“Mistri Ka Pyrthei” shaping and sculpturing the world that has gone out of order. The reason of such earth tremor, the shock, disturbance and upheaval, is the movement of the underworld Plate Tectonics pushing up one against another of 10 major and 70 minor thick rock plates, constantly moving at a speed of a few centimeters, sometimes locking the plates, the tension and stress built up, where they meet, releasing the pent-up energy, when separated, at a point called epi-centre, being the Eye – of the tremor which spread out like ripples outward, which causes the earth-shaking.
The historical records mention, that over 74 million people around the world have perished in earthquake and other natural disasters. The quake in China, in the Shensi region, killed 8,30,000 people, the intensity being 8.2 in the Ritcher scale. In the year 1964, in the region known as “Pacific Ring of Fire”, 25,000 square miles of Alaska, was heaved, causing a hundred million dollar damage. The Mediterranean area and lands eastward across Asia, including the holy lands receive about 15 per cent of all earthquakes. The remaining 5 per cent is scattered all over the world.
The Himalayan portion of the Alpide seismic belt, is one of the most active intra-continental region anywhere in the world. The Himalayan and North East India belt, comprise a portion of the Himalaya Arakan Fold belt, where 14 major earthquakes had occurred, during the period from the year 1897 to 1952. This included 5 great earthquakes, measuring 8.0 magnitudes in the Shillong Plateau in 1897, in Kangra – in 1905, Bihar – Nepal, in 1934, India – China, in 1950.
The northward moving Indian plate, covering North East India and the adjoining regions is regarded as a very complex geological structure. The Meghalaya plateau along with the Mikir massif, is sandwiched, between these two mobile belts. The region falls in the most seismically active belt of the world, and related to the predominant Indo- Burmese region. The Meghalaya plateau and eastern Himalayan region have a sub-vertical seismogenic faults and is related seismicity of the Indo-Burmese region.
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